In times of corporate distress, stakeholders can lose confidence in management and their ability to address the failure of the company to meet targets and budgets. Funding dries up as a result and options for the future quickly evaporate.
Provided the underlying assets or business are viable and valuable, bringing new capital and new credibility allows for a transformation or rescue to be successful.
These are the situations that the White Knight Fund seeks, and its founders have an enviable track record in successful turnaround and value creation.
“A lot of thought and planning went into the establishment of The White Knight Fund, our brand and our business development strategies,” founder and executive chairman of The White Knight Fund, Mel Ashton, said.
“The White Knight Fund’s focus and expertise are in the mining and exploration sector, an area of increasing opportunities. We needed to ramp up our exposure to our target market. We also have a close working relationships with the professional service sector that services that market,” he said.
“Business News was the logical and ideal choice for us to get dual exposure to our target market with its excellent coverage of the WA mining and exploration sector and to the professional service industry through the unique WA insolvency notices publication.
“The opportunity to partner with Business News as the inaugural sponsor of the WA insolvency notices was both innovative and directed at our core target source of opportunities. A new and exciting brand working with an established and respected brand was an obvious choice for The White Knight Fund.”
Mr Ashton holds and has held an impressive rung of notable positions, including chair of Gryphon Minerals, president of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ), interim CEO for the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Western Australia, director of Hawaiian, and chair of homelessness charity St Bart’s.
In 2018, he was awarded a Meritorious Service Award for outstanding service to CAANZ and the accounting profession.
He worked for several firms before becoming a partner at BDO to establish their insolvency and reconstruction division in 1989. In 1994, he established Ashton Read, which was a founding firm of PPB Advisory. He left to pursue a career as a professional company director in 2003.
