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IPA exclusive industry update from Insolvency Insider

IPA Insolvency Practitioner newsletter, February 2023

Contents

A specially curated selection of the top stories for IPA members from Insolvency Insider Editor, Henry Louis. More information on all the stories and the link to subscribe to the newsletter is here.

Recent Insolvencies

  • Aspen Phoenix Newco Limited (trading as Paperchase), the high street stationery retailer with 106 stores across the UK, entered administration on 31 January, after a sales process failed to result in any viable going concern offers for the business. Immediately following the appointment of Kirstie Provan, Mark Fry and Gary Shankland of Begbies Traynor as Joint Administrators, supermarket chain Tesco acquired the Paperchase brand and its intellectual property via a pre-pack sale. The deal does not include any of the company’s 106 stores, which will reportedly remain open for the time being. Sanne Group UK Limited has three registered charges against the company.
  • Flybe Limited, a British regional airline based at Birmingham Airport, declared on 28 January that it was entering administration, cancelling all flights (reportedly impacting 2,500 passengers on Saturday alone) and making most of its 321 staff redundant. This represents the company’s second administration in recent years, having just returned to flying less than a year ago after falling into administration in 2020. David Pike and Mike Pink of Interpath have been appointed Joint Administrators, and said that the company’s most significant setback was the impact the pandemic had on supply chains, which dramatically impacted the delivery of new aircraft. Nac Aviation 4 Limited has a registered charge against the company and Dlp Holdings S.A.R.L. has two.
  • Power by Britishvolt Ltd, a startup manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for the automotive industry which promised to build a £3.8billion gigafactory in the north-east of England, entered administration on 17 January. Joint Administrators Dan Hurd, Joanne Robinson and Alan Hudson of EY said that the administration was due to insufficient equity investments for both the ongoing research and the development of its sites in the Midlands and the north-east of England. Katch Fund Solutions and Hsbc UK Bank PLC each has a registered charge against the company.

Insights

  • David Manson, Philip Povey and Bethany Jamieson of DLA Piper summarise the case of Goodbox Co Labs, which is the first example of an individual creditor unilaterally seeking to access the Part 26A Restructuring Plan, aptly coined the “Super Scheme”, offering a direct route for creditors to propose a rival Restructuring Plan to a sponsor or company-backed Super Scheme
  • The team at Jones Day summarise a recent decision where the English High Court ordered the delivery of an entire server to an insolvency officeholder, notwithstanding that the server may have contained documents belonging to and subject to the privilege of third parties. 
  • Allister Manson of Opus desribes the approach taken by Opus in the collapse of a major cryptocurrency exchange, Britain’s allegedly biggest-ever personal insolvency and the devastation of one of Russia’s major gold mining businesses by post-Ukraine invasion sanctions.

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