Simon Skelton

Simon Skelton is a Managing Director in the Corporate Finance & Restructuring practice. Simon has over 11 years of experience in corporate finance and expert testimony and a further 15 years of commercial experience in legal practice. He has industry expertise in hospitality, retail, financial and professional services, and mining and mining services.

Simon‘s diverse experience spans a range of disciplines, including all types of formal insolvency, general advisory work and expert testimony. Simon typically works on major corporate restructures (including investigations into the conduct of directors and company solvency), financial due diligence, expert testimony on financial loss, solvency and professional duties and class action claims adjudication.

Relevant Experience

• Strategic advice of Safe Harbour provisions of the Corporations Act for medium and listed enterprises.
• Corporate restructure of ASX listed company with Brazilian mining operations, including debt trade and equity recapitalisation; Chapter 7 and VA contingency planning for ASX listed global mining service company requiring a restructure of its debt obligations to noteholders (4,500+ workforce, annual revenue AU$1bn); controlled wind down of utility broker and management consultant (750+ workforce, annual revenue AU$150m).
• Operations management of Queensland Nickel during voluntary administration (550+ workforce, annual revenue AU$700 million); operating and financial management of off-set printing company during voluntary administration (150+ workforce, annual revenues $30m).
• Working capital due diligence of University Pathway and vocational education provider (annual revenue AU$300m); red flag due diligence of mining service companies (annual revenues AU$110m) for global special situations fund; cash flow lend analysis for financial institution lending to helicopter rescue service (secured debt AU$30m).
• Expert witness court reports for Supreme Court and Federal Court proceedings concerning duties of receivers, historical and prospective solvency and appropriateness of financial forecasts.
• Investigations into the conduct of directors with respect to breach of duties and insolvent trading, resulting in recoveries of $1.5m+.
• Adjudication of claims against an insolvent ASX listed company (3,000+ creditors, claims AU$85m+); quantifying distributions for an AU$150m+ class action settlement on behalf of ASX listed litigation funder.