Melia
Hirst

Melia is a Partner and heads up the Restructuring & Insolvency team.  Melia acts for a wide range of clients in connection with all aspects of business distress and insolvency, as well as solvent winding-ups.  She frequently acts for Insolvency Practitioners acting as administrators, liquidators, receivers, supervisors of voluntary arrangements and monitors of ‘breathing space’ moratoriums. 

Melia regularly acts for business entities experiencing financial challenges. She provides support at board level to offer strategies to safeguard the interests of creditors, where possible with a view to avoiding formal insolvency, as well as protecting those who are running the business from personal liability.

Banks, commercial lenders and other stakeholders (such as landlords and suppliers) who are concerned about or impacted by the insolvency or business failure of a borrower, tenant or customer, engage Melia to advise on their available options and how to limit financial loss.

Melia is well known for advising on time-critical turnaround assignments involving the sale of a business and/or assets by administrators on a “pre-pack” basis. She regularly acts for purchasers of businesses out of insolvency. 

Upon qualification in 2006, Melia specialised exclusively in restructuring and insolvency law and progressed her career at a large regional law firm, before moving to another regional firm in 2015, where she became a Partner in 2019.

Melia is known for her strength of expertise on technical aspects of insolvency law and she runs training and information-sharing sessions for clients, as well as speaking regularly at industry seminars and conferences.

Notable work highlights

• Handling a landmark application to the High Court for directions to remove security interests over unbuilt property developments, upon the insolvency of the developer (operating an unregulated fractional ownership property investment scheme).
• Advising charitable companies ceasing operation on strategies for appointing administrators (and working collaboratively with the administrators in connection with sale options to maximise returns for creditors).
• Advising administrators on various business sales (sometimes on a pre-pack basis) under urgent time pressures, including operators of care homes, hotels and pharmacies.
• Advising liquidators cost-effectively on asset sales by companies in liquidation.
• Advising landlords of commercial premises where their tenant enters a voluntary arrangement, administration or liquidation process.
• Advising solvent liquidators on provisioning for liabilities where assets are distributed to shareholders.
• Advising banks on their routes to recovery and enforcement of security in connection with defaulting commercial customers.
• Dealing with the appointment of LPA Receivers over properties following borrower default and the subsequent sales process.

Accreditations & Memberships

• Associate Member of The Association of Business Recovery Professionals (R3).

• Member of the Committee of the Southern Region of R3.

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Insights

Insights and thoughts written by Melia

• Article

How to manage a charity through financial distress

10 Apr 2024

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3 min read

• Event

Charities Webinar – How to manage a charity through financial distress

22 Sep 2023

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< 1 min read

• Event

Webinar | Navigating GDPR: a practical update for Insolvency Practitioners

05 Sep 2023

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< 1 min read

• Press Release

Trethowans announces Partner promotions and appointments

03 May 2023

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2 min read

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