In situations involving financial pressure, timing and clarity are important. Lenders, investors, directors, private equity houses, and insolvency practitioners require legal partners who can act quickly, offer commercial insights, and protect their interests.

Shoosmiths’ Corporate Restructuring & Advisory team provides legal services across a wide range of restructuring and insolvency matters. This includes contingency planning, distressed acquisitions, and formal insolvency procedures, with an emphasis on technical expertise and practical solutions.

Our team is known for its responsiveness, commerciality and ability to coordinate seamlessly across disciplines—whether advising on cross-border group restructures, acting for administrators on high-profile trading insolvencies, or helping directors navigate their duties in difficult times.

The team has experience with complex assignments, including business disposals for insolvency practitioners and acquisitions for corporate clients. Having acted on more retail CVAs than any other law firm, Shoosmiths is now widely known in the restructuring community as the go-to law firm for CVAs and Restructuring Plans, particularly in the retail sector, winning roles on a number of large, well-known businesses going through restructuring processes.

We are a leading force in the Restructuring Plan space, recognised for pioneering innovative and forward-thinking solutions; delivering creative solutions tailored to complex challenges.

• advised PwC as administrators of Wilko Limited and related entities on all aspects of the administration of one of the UK’s largest retail insolvencies since Woolworths

• advised Madagascar Oil Limited on a highly contested, cross-border Part 26A restructuring plan involving £1.5bn of compromised debt, delivering an innovative restructuring solution in a complex, cross-jurisdictional mandate and securing a favourable costs order

• advised Hilco Capital on the strategic acquisition and refinancing of Lakeland Limited via management buyout and funding package

• advised FTI Consulting as administrators of DC London PIE Limited, franchise operator of Pizza Hut UK, on its pre-pack sale to Yum!Brands

• advised Interpath as administrators of Bodycare Limited, a 147-store retailer, supporting the administrators with legal advice relating to store trading, buyer negotiations, and the sale of the brand/IP

• advising The Original Factory Shop Limited, the 178-store retailer, on its (approved) CVA, focusing on rent renegotiations and streamlining both logistics and the head office operations

• advised the joint liquidators of Food Retailer Operations Limited (formerly Somerfield supermarkets) on a £450m+ transaction at an undervalue and preference claim against the Co op Group arising from its £1.5bn acquisition of Somerfield

• advised Frog Bikes Limited (a UK children’s bicycle manufacturer) and its administrators, FRP, on all aspects of its administration, including supporting the business and its administrators through a time-critical restructuring process and an eventual sale of the business

• advised Interpath as Special Administrators of Logic Investments Limited, an FCA regulated investment firm

• advised Quantuma as the UK liquidators of La Perla on a landmark cross-border insolvency involving complex EU restructuring and asset recovery.