Interviews

Featured in Heads-Up

“The development of Singapore into an Asian restructuring hub needs time. We have all the tools necessary to get there, but you need to give us time to develop.” Chong Yee Leong, head of Allen & Gledhill’s restructuring & insolvency practice and co-head of its international arbitration practice, discusses the highs and lows Singapore has faced as it presses on with its bid to become a restructuring hub, and compares them to some of the lessons learned from its 30-year journey to becoming a popular seat for international arbitrations.

08 July 2021

Featured in Heads-Up

“The international work is polarising into a small number of players, none of which include the Big Four.” Alvarez & Marsal’s European leader Richard Fleming and UK head Mark Firmin discuss the firm’s expansion amid reform at the Big Four; as well as covid, Brexit, why landlords have had their heads in the sand for too long, and the rise of the UK restructuring plan.

18 June 2021

Featured in Covid-19 calls

Fried Frank restructuring and insolvency partners Ashley Katz and Mandip Englund give their views on the UK’s new pre-pack regulations and why a clear plan is needed to save businesses when an “artificial and unsustainable” bubble created by government support packages bursts.

22 March 2021

Ahead of his return to Shearman & Sterling in New York, former Lehman Brothers managing director Mark Shapiro spoke to GRR about his 30-year career and how opportunities for hedge funds have “changed quickly” during the covid-19 pandemic.

28 January 2021

Featured in Heads-Up

“The hunt for talent is a challenge at the moment within the restructuring sector. Purely because people are either already busy or expecting to get busier in the year to come.” David Fleming, the head of Duff & Phelps’ UK advisory team, spoke to GRR in December, soon after news broke that its global restructuring advisory practice was acquiring Hong-Kong headquartered Borelli Walsh. With at least four senior hires in the UK, a new office in Sydney and expansion in the Middle East and New York in 2020 too, we asked Fleming for his thoughts on the firm’s year ahead.

12 January 2021

Featured in Covid-19 calls

Simon Thomas, a partner at Goodwin’s financial restructuring practice in London, compares the current covid-19 related crisis to the global financial crisis, and discusses the legacies it will leave behind: from debt and high taxation, to fraud, and innovation.

15 September 2020

Featured in Covid-19 calls

John Marsden, Mayer Brown partner in Hong Kong and managing partner of the firm's Vietnam and Thailand offices, tells GRR that the covid-19 pandemic, unlike the global financial crisis, has given governments and financial institutions “breathing space” to evaluate which companies and industries they are going to support.

20 August 2020

Featured in Covid-19 calls

Karen Fellowes, the newly appointed leader of Stikeman Elliott’s Western Canadian restructuring group, tells GRR about recent changes to Canadian legislation and how virtual hearings have opened up local lawyers to an international practice.

31 July 2020

Featured in Covid-19 calls

Sébastien Binard, a partner at the Luxembourg law firm Arendt & Medernach who works on corporate law, private equity, M&A as well as restructuring and insolvency matters, says the covid-19-related financial crisis is priming the legal profession for virtualisation. It may even be spurring a much-needed update to Luxembourg’s restructuring law.

16 June 2020

Featured in Covid-19 calls

Mia Drennan, president and founder of the global administrative agency and trustee services firm GLAS Group, says the post-covid-19 financial crisis has caused a rise in rapid, round-the-clock and weekend work on transactions. At first her firm met demand for drawdowns, then emergency funding requests and later for more complex restructurings: GLAS has since battened the hatches for a “long cycle”.

10 June 2020