WCT Advisory brings in restructuring team from Bentleys in Queensland
Brisbane-based restructuring & turnaround boutique WCT Advisory has added the advisory team from Bentleys in Queensland, with industry veteran Tracy Knight joining as a managing partner.
Having recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, the addition more than triples WCT Advisory’s headcount to 16 professionals in a single hit, both in Brisbane and a secondary outlet in Adelaide, while expanding the firm’s services portfolio.
A registered liquidator, Knight brings more than three decades worth of accounting and insolvency industry experience to her new role, including the past decade and a half at Bentleys and an earlier six-year stint with KPMG.
“With Tracy and her team on board, we’re doubling down on our commitment to deliver serious results, and our clients can now count on deeper expertise and faster, sharper solutions no matter how complex the challenge,” stated Andrew Weatherley, a former FTI Consulting managing director who established WCT alongside David Cassidy in 2019, on the eve of the global pandemic.
While Covid has had a significant impact on the broader consulting industry, its most immediately apparent ramifications can be seen in the restructuring segment, with the ongoing wave of business collapses now reaching crisis-point. For WCT’s SME client-base, which already had to endure Covid and rampant inflation, the fall-out is increasingly spreading down the chain.
“From April 2024 onwards, we have undertaken a record number of small business restructures and liquidations across the construction, hospitality, retail, real estate and medical industries,” Weatherley recently told industry platform Insolvency Australia, adding that the firm foresees the trend continuing into at least early next year due to the ATO’s heightened debt recovery efforts.
Hence the motivation for bringing in the ten-strong advisory team from Bentleys to meet the growing market demand and strengthen WCT’s service offerings, which in addition to insolvency and restructuring further spans corporate finance and forensic & litigation, including investigations, commercial disputes, valuations and loss assessments, and expert witness services.
Knight, who also spent three years with ASIC and has been a Queensland committee member for both the TMA and ARITA associations, commented; “Joining WCT means bringing our clients a more holistic approach. We’re excited to dive deeper into their unique needs, providing the insights and support to navigate even the most intricate of issues with precision and care.”
Others to have crossed with Knight include new director trio Matthew Wilson (ex-FTI Consulting and KordaMentha, where Weatherley also spent more than a decade), Kelly Wheelahan (ten years at McGrathNicol), and four-decade finance and forensics veteran Graeme Bailey, who prior to only recently joining Bentleys operated his own boutique and spent time at HLB Mann Judd.
