Despite the notoriously brittle 2013 economy, one expert is not necessarily expecting a spike in restructuring activity.   “I’d say it’s more steady as she goes – there are not as many bigger deals as there were 18 months ago,” Gilbert+Tobin’s Dominic Emmett told ALB.

But if economic conditions improve, this may have the unexpected effect of lifting restructuring activity. “As you get out of an economic downturn, there’s more money around and there are more buyers for assets,” explains Emmett. “The banks might see that they now actually might be able to do something with an asset; someone might want to buy it or fix it – so ironically perhaps as we come out of the downturn cycle, there might be more activity in the restructuring space because there are more solutions.”

Mining services is also a potential area of interest. “A big influencing factor is the ability of these companies to issue debt into the U.S. markets - that’s saving a lot of companies that might otherwise be in difficulty,” said Emmett. He adds that this is an example of how restructuring activity is not necessarily counter-cyclical. “There are other reasons why companies get into difficulty,” he explains. “With mining services, it’s not so much the economic downturn, but that the mining space has changed. A lot of these mines have been built and are ready for production so now they’re up and running, they don’t need many of those services anymore. So the mining services companies get into difficulty not because there’s a recession; rather it’s just that they’re not required as much because the projects are moving from a construction phase to a production phase.”

Keep an eye out of ALB’s special feature on ALB Award winning dealmakers in issue 11.10.