Rely on the most comprehensive, up-to-date legal content designed and curated by lawyers for lawyers
Work faster and smarter to improve your drafting productivity without increasing risk
Accelerate the creation and use of high quality and trusted legal documents and forms
Streamline how you manage your legal business with proven tools and processes
Manage risk and compliance in your organisation to reduce your risk profile
Stay up to date and informed with insights from our trusted experts, news and information sources
Access the best content in the industry, effortlessly — confident that your news is trustworthy and up to date.
Find up-to-date guidance on points of law and then easily pull up sources to support your advice with Lexis PSL
Check out our straightforward definitions of common legal terms.
Our trusted tax intelligence solutions, highly-regarded exam training and education materials help guide and tutor Tax professionals
Access our unrivalled global news content, business information and analytics solutions
Insurance, risk and compliance intelligence using big data, proprietary linking and advanced analytics.
A leading provider of software platforms for professional services firms
In-depth analysis, commentary and practical information to help you protect your business
LexisNexis Blogs shed light on topics affecting the legal profession and the issues you're facing
Legal professionals trust us to help navigate change. Find out how we help ensure they exceed expectations
Lex Chat is a LexisNexis current affairs podcast sharing insights on topics for the legal profession
Discuss the latest legal developments, ask questions, and share best practice with other LexisPSL subscribers
Benn Richards, senior associate with Russell-Cooke, discusses the pre-pack administration sale of a registered charity and questions whether there will be an increase in the numbers of charities failing.
4Children, a large children’s charity and the charity my firm was acting for, transferred a substantial amount of its services and its employees to other service providers immediately after entering administration. This was required to affect an ‘orderly wind down’ of its services in light of the charity’s financial difficulties and to ensure there would be a continuity of those services. The steps that were taken were also in the best interests of the creditors and reduced potential liabilities.
In theory, a pre-pack of a registered charity is no different to any ‘normal’ pre-pack, in that you negotiate a deal with the purchaser prior to the company being placed into administration and effect that deal shortly after the company enters administration.
However, given 4Children’s charitable status and the nature of a charity’s business, the matter was not as straightforward. Some of the additional considerations included:
Given the nature of a pre-pack, if there is ‘early disclosure’ of the charity’s financial position, the effect of that could cause the business of the charity to immediately cease, as it could mean that suppliers terminate contracts, councils tender new contracts, while parents, children and staff are left to deal with the consequences. Therefore, the disclosure of 4Children’s financial position was given at the appropriate and earliest moment and after all of the building blocks had already been put into place in order to achieve a transfer of 4Children’s services to new service providers.
There were a number of practical difficulties to overcome, such as the sheer number of contractual counter parties that had to agree to the transfer of the services—it was not a company with one big supplier and one customer. Aside from that, the management of 4Children, the lead administrator Adam Stephens and other members of the Smith & Williamson restructuring team were mindful that the charity provided services for children and there had to be a continuity of those services.
Charities, like any business, are not immune to the current financial climate. There is an argument that they are actually more exposed simply because quite a lot of charities obtain funding from government grants and unfortunately given the state of the economy there is less money available.
Therefore, there is an argument to say that some charities could be under increasing financial pressure. In saying that, however, charities are well regulated, tend to be well structured, managed and generally financially sound. But I don’t think the charitable sector can be immune to the economic climate and there is a risk that there could be further failures.
The advice I would give is that a charitable pre-pack is no different to any ‘normal’ pre-pack, except for the fact that it is likely that you are not actually selling tangible or profitable assets and you need to be mindful of the Charity Commission and the regulations. In addition, you will need to consider reputational management issues, as the services you’re transferring are mostly required by vulnerable people/causes.
Interviewed by Jessica McCarthy.
The views expressed by our Legal Analysis interviewees are not necessarily those of the proprietor.
If you are a LexisPSL Restructuring and Insolvency subscriber, click the links below for further information:
Charity insolvency—a guide to available insolvency procedures
Charity insolvency—personal liability of charity trustees
Not a subscriber? Find out more about how LexisPSL can help you and click here for a free trial of LexisPSL Restructuring and Insolvency.
First published on LexisPSL Restructuring and Insolvency
Free trials are only available to individuals based in the UK
* denotes a required field
0330 161 1234