Ray Petrakis
Corporate collapses & insolvency
Based in Melbourne
Ray spent two decades covering administrations, receiverships and the pointy end of corporate failure before joining Defamer. He reads administrators' reports for fun and trusts a creditors' schedule over any press release.
23 published articles · most recent August 2, 2026
Ray spent two decades covering administrations, receiverships and the pointy end of corporate failure before joining Defamer. He reads administrators' reports for fun and trusts a creditors' schedule over any press release.
Articles by Ray Petrakis
Virgin Australia's 2020 collapse: how administration saved the airlineVirgin Australia's voluntary administration was Australia's biggest airline failure since Ansett. Here's how Bain Capital ended up owning it.
Slater & Gordon and the Quindell deal that nearly ended the firmHow Slater & Gordon's 2015 UK acquisition of Quindell's professional services arm turned a listed law firm into a case study in corporate collapse.
MFS/Octaviar: the Gold Coast collapse that unravelled a $2.5bn empireHow MFS Limited grew into a sprawling Gold Coast financial empire, then collapsed in 2008 into one of Australia's longest-running insolvency sagas.
Pyramid Building Society: the Geelong collapse a fuel levy had to fixHow a Geelong building society's 1990 collapse left 200,000 depositors exposed, and why Victorian motorists paid it off at the bowser for a decade.
Adelaide Steamship: how John Spalvins built a $12 billion house of mirrorsAdsteam's cross-shareholding empire made John Spalvins Australia's most admired executive. Then the early-1990s recession found the gearing underneath.
Centro Properties: the $18bn debt maturity that nearly ended it, and the court case on director dutyCentro Properties survived the GFC only just, undone by short-term debt and a balance-sheet reclassification error that produced one of Australia's landmark director-duty rulings.
Sons of Gwalia: the hedging collapse that rewrote shareholder rightsSons of Gwalia's 2004 collapse over gold hedging losses produced a High Court ruling that let aggrieved shareholders queue as creditors, alarming boards for a decade.
Bell Group: the collapse that spawned the longest litigation in Australian corporate historyAlan Bond's Bell Group fell in 1991. What followed was a banks-versus-liquidators legal war that consumed three decades, two jurisdictions and hundreds of millions in costs.
Harris Scarfe: the accounting scandal that brought down a 150-year-old retailerHarris Scarfe traded through two world wars and the Depression before collapsing in 2001. The accounting fraud that accelerated its end took years of litigation to untangle.
Storm Financial: the advice firm that wiped out a generation of retireesHow a Townsville financial planning firm built a leveraged investment model that worked brilliantly in a bull market — and then destroyed thousands of ordinary Australian lives when the GFC arrived.
Compass Airlines: the low-cost challenger that crashed twiceIn the early 1990s, Compass Airlines twice tried to break the Ansett–Australian Airlines duopoly and twice ended in administration. Here's how it happened.
Dick Smith Electronics: how a private-equity float became one of retail's most scrutinised collapsesThe 2016 receivership of Dick Smith Electronics left creditors short and raised hard questions about inventory accounting and the mechanics of its 2013 float.
One.Tel: how Australia's fourth-largest telco burned through a billion dollarsBacked by Packer and Murdoch interests, One.Tel collapsed in May 2001 with debts that ultimately ran to over a billion dollars. This is the story of how it happened.
ABC Learning: how Eddy Groves built and broke the world's largest listed childcare companyEddy Groves turned a single Brisbane childcare centre into a listed empire spanning three continents. When the debt came due in 2008, 100,000 children faced losing their places overnight.
Timbercorp and Great Southern: how the tax-driven agribusiness dream ended in ruinTwo ASX-listed giants sold Australians on tax-effective tree plantations and olive groves. When they collapsed in 2009, thousands of investors were left holding loans they could never repay.
Two airlines, one sky: the policy that shaped Australian aviationFor four decades, two airlines flew every domestic route under a regulatory framework so rigid it determined what planes they flew. Here's how it worked — and what broke it.
Ansett's 2001 collapse: the job losses, stranded passengers and the entitlements fightWhen Ansett grounded its fleet in September 2001, roughly 16,000 workers lost their jobs overnight. What followed was one of Australia's messiest corporate wind-downs.
How Air New Zealand took full control of Ansett — and what it cost both of themAir New Zealand's acquisition of full ownership of Ansett Australia looked like a trans-Tasman masterstroke. It ended in one of the largest corporate collapses in Australian history.
Ansett Australia: the full rise and fall of a national airlineFrom Reg Ansett's single-plane service in 1936 to the administration that stranded 16,000 workers in 2001 — the definitive story of how Australia's second airline was built, sold and ultimately broken.
HIH Insurance: how Australia's largest corporate failure happenedThe 2001 collapse of HIH Insurance wiped out $5.3 billion and left thousands without cover. The Royal Commission's findings on governance failure remain a warning that hasn't fully been heeded.
Opes Prime: how a stock-lending firm turned retail investors into unsecured creditors overnightIn March 2008, Opes Prime collapsed owing nearly $1 billion. The retail investors who thought they owned shares discovered they had signed them away. This is how it happened.
Allco Finance Group: the leasing empire that GFC finished offAllco Finance Group collapsed in 2008 with debts in the billions. The related-party questions that followed were almost as complex as the structure itself.
Babcock & Brown: the gearing machine that couldn't survive the GFCBabcock & Brown was Australia's second-largest investment bank at its peak. Then the debt that built the empire became the thing that destroyed it.