Allegro and FTI Consulting take top honours at TMA’s restructuring awards

Private equity firm Allegro has been awarded ‘Restructuring Deal of the Year’ at this year’s TMA Australia national conference for its carve-out and resurrection of public sector consultancy Scyne Advisory.

Following up on its win in the ‘mid-sized turnaround’ category last year for picking up and rebooting the Pizza Hut brand, Allegro also this year took home the small company award for its transformation of Everest Ice Cream.

The Turnaround Management Association recognised FTI Consulting in the medium category for rescuing beloved frozen dessert-maker Sara Lee, with the firm edging out finalist Cor Cordis for steering the sale of ICT provider NetComm.

The ‘large turnaround’ category was meanwhile bagged by construction business Decmil, which ran multiple turnaround projects simultaneously to restore its reputation prior to its sale via Scheme of Arrangement. That process was supported by Birch Advisory, a Perth-based boutique restructuring consulting firm.

Chaired this year by Deloitte’s Richard Hughes, Laura Johns of Norton Rose Fulbright, and FTI senior managing director Joseph Hansell, the TMA annual conference is the premier gathering for Australia’s preeminent turnaround & restructuring professionals. Among other presentations, Allegro outlined its efforts to create Scyne Advisory, before then being handed the best turnaround gong.

Scyne Advisory

With the PwC government tax scandal fall-out still in its early days, the embattled Big Four firm cut loose its $600 million public sector consulting business to Allegro for just $1, the latter then fully reestablishing the practice in a matter of months. But that’s just the bare bones of the story. Allegro faced a number of serious challenges during the process, not the least of which was regaining the government’s trust.

“Scyne Advisory was a pivotal deal for the Allegro team, which drew upon nearly two decades of expertise and our collective grit to transform challenging circumstances into a growth opportunity,” Allegro said of the recognition. “We’re proud to share this award with the Scyne Advisory team who co-designed the business and remain committed to supporting a stronger public sector for a better Australia.”

Sara Lee

The initial downfall and then FTI Consulting’s saving of Sara Lee has captured the minds of many true-blue Australians, along with commanding just as many column inches. In short, there were many challenges, but alongside Kathryn Evans and vaunted industry veteran Vaughan Strawbridge, fellow FTI administrator Hansell described the successful restructuring as one his proudest to date.

“We were so grateful to the loyal workforce and managers who made this process a success,” Strawbridge stated. “We had a team on site dedicated to supporting them in trading the business, but saw a huge opportunity, which was around preserving an iconic brand and even more importantly saving as many of their jobs as we could. Now we look forward to its future success.”

NetComm

Cor Cordis was called in when on top of its own existing financial challenges the collapse of Australian home internet access provider NetComm’s parent Casa Systems further threatened its future. Led by administrators Kate Conneely and Rahul Goyal, the Cor Cordis team was first able to steady the ship before then successfully negotiating a sale to US company DZS in under 12 weeks.

“We were comfortable that a comprehensive sale process had already been conducted, making it unnecessary and impractical to commence a fresh process,” Conneely said of the quick-fire and positive resolution for all parties. “We engaged directly with the two parties who had previously expressed interest and provided non-binding offers, working collaboratively to secure binding bids.”