Teacher Retirement System of Texas plans to reduce its private equity target allocation to 12% from a current exposure of 16.7% starting in October. The planned reduction, which may be implemented over a number of years. For now, the change in target allocation likely means reduced new commitments, while some of the rebalancing could be accomplished by fund AUM growth.

Despite three recent landmark UK restructuring plan decisions, uncertainty remains around the value, if any, a plan company should offer dissenting creditors as the “deliverability price” of a plan.

Actions brought against the BHS directors by the group’s liquidators have resulted in the largest reported award for wrongful trading since the provision’s introduction, but the judgment highlights some unsettled areas of the law relating to directors’ duties.

The key distinction between a fixed and a floating charge is well established as a matter of English law.

It is essential to establish first if participating companies are under a control relationship and of the same corporate group

How can creditors reduce the risk of a fixed charge being characterised as floating?

The determination as to whether a charge over a valuable asset is fixed or floating can be crucial to a creditor's recovery in an insolvency. To have two cases over the course of little more than a year providing detailed analysis of the nature of fixed and floating charges is indeed a treat. Are there any practical steps creditors can take to reduce the risk of a fixed charge being characterised as floating?

Fluctuating assets?

At the bottom of the stack in investment fund structures, there are generally “real” assets—things like equity interests in portfolio companies, mortgage loans, commercial receivables, maybe even bricks and mortar. Fund finance transactions, though, are by design crafted to be at several levels removed from such underlying assets. With such ultimate assets remote from the transaction, it may seem to fund finance practitioners that concerns about changes in the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) relating to the nature of collateral assets are just as remote.

Consent of secured creditors with no remaining economic interest is not needed to extend the administration of a company

Osborne Clarke recently advised the administrators in two reported High Court cases which have confirmed that a "secured creditor" under section 248 of the Insolvency Act 1986 should be construed in the present tense, retaining the status of secured creditor only if it is still owed a debt by the company in administration.

There's been a flurry of regulatory activity in the UK and Europe over the past few weeks. Here's a look at the highlights.

Early indications for the construction industry in the upcoming general election, JCT publishes the new Design and Build 2024 contracts, new second staircase requirement for qualifying residential buildings and a recent judgment requiring strict compliance with notice provisions in some building contracts

General election announced for 4 July 2024