THE SOUNDS OF THE BASKERVILLE PODCASTS - SEASON 6
Chris Baskerville, an astute businessman, Chartered Accountant, Liquidator, Bankruptcy Trustee, shares his expertise, experience and plenty of case-studies. It’s entertaining and informative – what more could you need?
In Season 6, James and Chris unpack the reality of operating in an era of permanent uncertainty.
109 Intelligent Uncertainty
Reflecting on global events, economic fundamentals, and frontline insolvency experience, Chris explains why supply and demand still rule everything, and why uncertainty isn’t something to fear, but something to exploit.
The conversation explores government intervention, infrastructure pressure, workforce disruption, and the stark truth that there will always be winners and losers in times of change.
110 Running a Business is Hard Enough
In this high-stakes episode of The Sounds of the Baskerville, James, Chris, and Stephen unpack the difficulties of running a small business. Looking at one of the most confronting realities facing Australian directors, the Director Penalty Notice.
As ATO enforcement accelerates, unpaid PAYG and superannuation can quickly shift from company debt to personal liability, often catching directors off guard.
111 Dirty Money, Clean Getaway
Discover why a looming March 2026 AML compliance deadline could expose accountants and practitioners to serious fines, how liquidators wield surprising legal powers to chase stolen funds across borders, and why the most dangerous person a fraudster can cross is a well-funded, angry creditor.
112 Hope Is Not a Strategy
James and Chris are joined once again by restructuring specialist Ginette Muller to explore one powerful concept every director should understand: being “match fit.” Before walking into liquidation, voluntary administration, or Safe Harbour, are directors truly prepared for what lies ahead?
Ginette and Chris unpack the full toolkit available to struggling businesses: Safe Harbour, voluntary administration, restructuring, and when to simply hand over the keys. Chris shares frontline insights on identifying the real problem behind a struggling business, while the trio discuss Safe Harbour, concentration risk, ATO pressure, and why hope is not a strategy
113 Here are the Keys
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty tackle one of the most overlooked conversations in business: how to close up shop the right way.
Whether you’re exhausted, retirement-bound, locked in a deadlocked shareholder dispute, or simply watching a once-great business run out of road, there’s a world of difference between walking away cleanly and watching chaos consume everything you built.
Chris breaks down every option on the table, from simply letting a company deregister, to members’ voluntary liquidations with serious tax advantages, to the expensive mess that shareholder disputes become when there’s no agreement in place.
The bottom line? Meeting danger head-on halves it. Ignoring it doubles it. If you’ve ever wondered what “closing well” actually looks like, this episode is your roadmap.
114 One Shot in Seven Years
Chris Baskerville and Ginette Muller take stock of where the SBR landscape stands today. After years of record uptake, the numbers are starting to dip and the reason why matters for every business owner, accountant, and advisor in the room.
The ATO, creditor in 93% of all SBRs, has sharpened its scrutiny. Red flags like poor compliance history, Division 7A director loans, and underpowered offers are killing proposals that might once have slipped through. Chris and Ginette unpack what practitioners need to do differently: front-load your evidence, get clients match fit, and make your one shot in seven years count. The stakes are real. Tighten the process too much, and phoenixing fills the void.
115 When the Storm Hits
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty take a candid, unscripted look at the economic storm clouds gathering over Australia. From the cascading effects of global conflict on fuel prices, to the squeeze on household disposable incomes, to tightening credit across second-tier lenders, the conditions for a wave of business distress are quietly falling into place.
Chris unpacks the concept of externalities, the economic shocks no business owner can plan for and what history tells us about the insolvency cycle that follows. With recession talk returning and the cost of living biting harder than ever, this episode is a timely reality check.
116 You can't Sell more Time
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty tackle one of the most common and quietly dangerous traps facing Australian businesses right now: the labour and margin squeeze.
When you can’t hire enough people to meet demand, and rising costs are eating into what little margin you have left, the ceiling on what your business can earn becomes very real, very fast. Chris and James explore what business owners can actually do about it, from smart pricing strategy (you can lose 20% of customers and still come out ahead) to the role of automation, offshoring, and knowing when a business model has simply run its course.
117 When Business and Marriage Both Fall Apart
Chris Baskerville is joined by James Flaherty and family law specialist Pierce Carstensen for a fascinating deep-dive into one of the most overlooked intersections in the insolvency world — where family law and insolvency law meet head-on.
Pierce reveals why insolvency practitioners routinely leave money on the table when a family law element enters the picture, and why that needs to change. From spouses quietly transferring assets to defeat creditors, to the Family Law Act’s little-known power to tear apart those very agreements, to the complex dance between trustees in bankruptcy and the family court — this episode pulls back the curtain on a space that most practitioners avoid but can’t afford to.
118 Drugs, Diamonds & Divorce
Chris Baskerville and Pierce Carstensen are back, and this time the gloves are off. Pierce delivers two jaw-dropping war stories that bring the family law and insolvency crossover to vivid life: a diamond merchant framed on death row, and a debtor who tried to hide everything behind a conveniently timed divorce.
But beneath the remarkable storytelling lies a serious message for creditors, directors, and insolvency practitioners. Pierce reveals why the family court can actually be a more powerful forum to recover assets than the state courts — and why failing to intervene in family law proceedings could mean walking away empty-handed.
If Episode 117 was the theory, Episode 118 is where it gets real.
119 Not Every Job is a Nail
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty go head-to-head on one of the most important decisions a distressed business can face. Both tools exist to restructure and preserve viable companies, but they are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one could cost you dearly.
Chris breaks down the key differences: who stays in control, what the eligibility thresholds really mean, why unpaid super can be a dealbreaker, and why voluntary administration offers flexibility that SBR simply can’t. He also explains the compelling maths behind SBR, how a director contributing $200,000 can wipe out $1 million in debt, and when that equation no longer makes sense.
120 The Creditor Matrix
In this second instalment of The Sounds of the Baskerville’s deep dive into restructuring, Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty get into the mechanics of the decision, what Chris calls the Creditor Matrix. Because the right path isn’t just about cost or control. It’s about who you owe money to, how much power they hold, and whether they like you.
Chris unpacks why the ATO dominates nearly 80% of all SBR creditor pools and what happens when it doesn’t. He explains why voluntary administration is the only real option for businesses with complex assets, related party creditors who want a vote, or directors who need to buy time. He also tackles licensing and why a construction company entering VA may never trade again. The matrix isn’t complicated. But getting it wrong is.
121 The Nightclub and The Engineer
The SBR vs Voluntary Administration debate comes to life with real war stories from the coalface. First up: a nightclub owner who poured his personal injury compensation into a business, only to find himself trapped in the wrong restructuring tool and how switching to VA changed everything.
Then Chris flips the script with a COVID-era engineering firm that was the textbook case for SBR: a fundamentally sound business, a hockey stick recovery in sight, and a director who just needed one clean break from legacy debt. The lesson? Neither tool is universally better. The right answer depends on who you owe, what assets you hold, and how early you ask for help. And the earlier you call, the more options you have.
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122 You Guys Are Going to BE Busy
Taking stock of where Australian small businesses find themselves right now. Budget changes, tightening capital gains tax concessions, a harder ATO, and rising interest rates on second-tier lending have quietly closed the escape hatch that many directors have been relying on — drawing equity from the family home to prop up a leaking business.
Chris unpacks why pouring money into a broken business model is just buying time, not buying survival. He also pulls back the curtain on what insolvency practitioners actually do — and why the directors who call early get options, while those who wait until the plane is nosediving pay a much steeper price.
123 You Guys Need to GET Busy
The Sounds of the Baskerville, Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty pick up where they left off, exploring the wave of business distress building across Australia and what it really means for directors, accountants, and advisors navigating an increasingly complex environment.
Chris unpacks the psychology of the director who holds on until the bitter end, why accountants are bearing the brunt of every new tax change, and what the rise of AI actually means for the professions built around numbers and judgment. The message isn’t panic. It’s adaptation. Survival of the most adaptable, not the fittest.
124 It's All on You
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty explore one of the great inequalities in Australian business, the stark difference between what’s at stake for a small business director versus the director of a large corporation when things go wrong.
Chris unpacks why small business owners intertwine their entire lives. Family home, personal assets, reputation. With their company, while large company directors often walk away unscathed, protected by governance structures, D&O insurance, and other people’s capital. He also shares a sobering war story about a brilliant manufacturer undone by stepping away for too long.
125 Does Anyone Actually Want This
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty take a fascinating detour into the world of business ideas. The good, the bad, and the ones that consume everything a founder has and still don’t fly.
From zombie unicorns burning through venture capital to the classic small business trap of pouring personal savings into a product the market never actually wanted, Chris and James explore why passion alone is never enough. Chris unpacks what the ideal business actually looks like, one that makes money while you sleep, and why the greatest risk for any founder is failing to ask the market one simple question: does anyone actually want this?
126 Why SBRs Are Losing the Room
SBR numbers have nearly halved. Acceptance rates have dropped from 80% to the mid-60s, then jumped the moment the 2026 budget landed. Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty ask why, and what it’s costing.
Creditors want more now. Twenty cents in the dollar used to cut it. Now it’s closer to 30, and even generous offers are getting knocked back. Chris breaks down the real maths: when does an SBR actually beat just paying the tax debt outright?
The pair also put a dollar figure on what’s being left on the table when a plan doesn’t go ahead, and it’s not small change. They make the case for lifting the $1 million threshold, with a pointed message to the ATO about consistency along the way.
If you’ve ever wondered whether an SBR stacks up, this one’s got the numbers.
127 7 Lessons from ASIC's Biggest Restructuring Review
ASIC’s biggest ever review of voluntary administration is out, covering 5,000 companies over four years. Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty pull seven lessons from it, and the numbers reframe how VA and SBR sit next to each other.
Bigger companies restructure more successfully, but 15% of VAs still had debts under $250,000. VAs’ share of external administration has dropped from a third to just 10% since SBR arrived, and two-thirds of DOCA proposals now involve a third party funding the deal rather than the company itself. The related-party voting rules also work in opposite directions between VA and SBR, which changes how a proposal gets built.
128 Ten Million a Year: The Case for Starting a Business
Chris Baskerville and James Flaherty are at it again, this time tackling the question every director eventually asks: is it actually worth it?
Chris argues that a business is only valuable once it can run without you, generating cash on its own so your time is finally yours again.
They dig into the compliance load that’s grown heavier every season this show has run, from personal liability for super to jail time now on the table for failing to lodge tax returns. Chris also flags a wave coming for baby boomer business owners with no successor lined up, and what happens when a business is worth nothing without the person running it.
Then the story that reframes the whole conversation: a business bought out of voluntary administration for half a million dollars, sold ten years later for nearly a hundred million. Chris breaks down what that number actually means per year worked, and why he still calls himself pro-business despite the job title.
129 500 Companies, One Collapse
Chris Baskerville breaks down the Bathla Group collapse, a $3.4 billion construction failure with 500 companies in the group and 12,000 stakeholders exposed.
He walks through why administrators had to borrow money just to start the job, why the state government refused to fund the fallout, and what happens when secured lenders decide whether to keep funding a project just to limit their own losses.
Chris draws a direct line to the 2018 Carillion collapse in the UK, which added 20% to construction failure rates over the following two years, and asks whether Bathla could trigger something similar concentrated in New South Wales. He also digs into the rise of private credit filling the gap banks have retreated from, and what that means if property values don’t hold up under the debt sitting on top of them.
