Michael Pallott Partner - Restructuring Services

Michael has nearly 20 years’ corporate restructuring and personal insolvency experience; with a particular focus on helping directors of Companies which are financially distressed. Michael is authorised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

He works in partnership with the directors to understand the current challenges facing the company, with a view to rescuing the business and where this isn’t possible, he provides honest, pragmatic advice on their insolvency options. His recent advisory engagements have included viability, pre-lending and formal Independent Business Reviews on behalf of lenders and director-led projects which include the building of integrated, trading cash flow and profit and loss forecasts and debt recovery strategies. Michael is experienced in stakeholder management and can assist directors who need to engage with lenders, HMRC, landlords, Local Authorities, suppliers or where the Company is subject to an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Recently, Michael has developed a niche expertise in working with distressed companies who have utilised one or more of the Government Covid – 19 measures such as CBILS, Bounce Back Loans or the Furlough Scheme. He has been engaged to assist with re-financing these loans, to help directors in obtaining increased CBILs or to provide advice in relation to the new Recovery Loan Scheme.

Michael frequently uses our proprietary, predictive data analytics tool, Radar, to assist lenders and other clients to identify risk in their portfolio or supply chain. Radar is a bespoke product that can provide both a portfolio and granular report to help you extract maximum value from your customers.

Prior to joining Mazars in 2017, Michael led the personal and contentious insolvency team of a Big 4 accountancy practice and worked on various bankruptcy appointments of high net-worth individuals and led forensic investigations into complicated company frauds. Since joining Mazars, Michael has helped to establish our Contentious Insolvency Centre of Excellence in London. This team specialises in identifying fraud, forensic investigations, litigation and asset tracing and recoveries in corporate insolvencies and bankruptcy appointments, often working with our Forensic Investigations team to maximise recoveries for creditors.

Some of Michael’s recent cases include:

Trading administration of an international marketing agency with turnover of £60m and 200 employees where we achieved a share sale of subsidiaries in the US and Russia and a collect out of the entire debtor book which discharged the secured and preferential creditors’ debts in full and will pay a significant distribution to unsecured creditors.

Trading administration and sale of the business and assets of the UK’s largest, independent popcorn manufacturer which repaid the debts to the secured lender and preferential creditors in full.

Independent business and pre-lend review for an EdTech company who needed to increase its CBILS loan to avoid insolvency.

Working for a local authority client, I used Radar to assess the asset position of a debtor and produced a detailed, recovery report which enabled the collection of the c. £120k debt in full.

Administrator of a company where my investigations identified breach of duty claims by the de jure director totalling £1.5m. These claims have just settled, via mediation, for £1.2m.

Trustee of an individual that entered into a tax-avoidance scheme and incurred debts of c. £3m to HMRC. Following a forensic investigation, our Contentious Insolvency Team have identified three property transactions which may be challengeable as transactions at an undervalue and/or transactions defrauding creditors.

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