NextGen Noodles with Legends

Adrian Loader

Founding Partner, Allegro Funds

Adrian is the Founding Partner of Allegro Funds and has over 30 years’ experience in turnarounds, restructurings and operational improvement initiatives. He has taken on interim management roles of listed and unlisted companies and has been a director of companies in turnaround. He has also bought and sold debt in distressed situations, led financial and operational restructurings and invested equity in turnaround situations.

Adrian started his career in Arthur Andersen’s Global Corporate Finance division and following the Asian economic crisis, established its financial restructuring division in Thailand. He was also appointed GM of Brunei’s largest domestic company with over $5b of assets and 2,000 employees and helped lead its successful restructure.

Adrian and Chester Moynihan established Allegro Funds in 2004. Allegro is an independent fund manager, specialising in Active Complex Transformation and is the largest private equity investor of this type in Australia with over $4 billion AUM.

Adrian is an admitted solicitor in New South Wales and a qualified Chartered Accountant.  He holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Economics degree from the Australian National University and has also completed the Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment at FINSIA and a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice at the College of Law.

Maria O'Brien

Partner, Clayton Utz

Maria is a leading restructuring and insolvency practitioner in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

Specialising in both restructuring and insolvency and commercial litigation, Maria has significant experience acting for distressed or insolvent companies, their external administrators and creditors on a wide range of insolvency issues (both contentious and non-contentious), including informal workouts, with a particular focus on cross-border restructuring and insolvency.

Maria is a Fellow of INSOL International and the Chair and past President of Australia’s TMA. She is a member of the External Advisory Committee to the Australian Financial Security Authority and is a Treasury appointment to the Ministerial Pool for Insolvency Practitioner Registration and Disciplinary Committees convened under the Corporations Act.

Examples of Maria’s high profile engagements include acting for the directors in the administration of Virgin Australia, Garuda Indonesia, Astora Women’s Health, MA Financial / Sixth Street, Network Tren and Emeco Holdings.

Jason Preston

Chairman & Partner, McGrathNicol

Jason is the Executive Chair of McGrathNicol. Jason has more than 25 years of experience in restructuring and insolvency. He has worked on some of Australia’s most high-profile corporate restructures, advised on large financial transactions and been involved with complex project financing. Examples of Jason’s high-profile clients include Allegro on their acquisition of Scyne from PWC, Cyrus Capital on their bid for Virgin Airlines, Babcock & Brown, HIH Insurance, Royal Adelaide Hospital, QENOS, Toys R Us, Dick Smith, Steller Property Group and Quintis.

Jason works closely with boards and management to provide strategic and innovative solutions, and has experience in health, infrastructure, financial services, mining services, agriculture, property, transport, and logistics. As the Chair of the firm, Jason leads the board focused on the firm’s strategy and high governance standards. He also contributes to the turnaround industry and corporate renewal in Australia by sitting on the national board of the TMA.

Jason is actively involved in the community and has sat on the Wheelchair Sports NSW board for the last 10 years, an organisation that aims to change the lives of people with a disability through participation in sport.