ASIC published Report 836 on 7 July 2026: the first detailed public data on how voluntary administrations (VAs) and deeds of company arrangement (DOCAs) operate in practice, covering 3,528 grouped appointments, 5,020 companies and $71 billion in liabilities over four years. The message for the advisers who put companies into these processes is direct. Voluntary administration remains a powerful restructuring tool, but it rewards early, purposeful use and punishes delay. Timing, structure and scrutiny now decide whether a DOCA creates actually creates real value.
AT A GLANCE › 44% of administrations produced a DOCA, but size drove the result: 48% of appointments above $10 million in liabilities reached a deed, against 15% below $250,000. › DOCAs achieve three different things: rescue (49% of deeds involved continued trading), sale (22%) and funded compromise (22%). Each demands a different question and analysis from the adviser. › Creditors vote for certainty over quantum. Proposals estimating 1 to 10 cents in the dollar converted to a deed at 88%, barely below the rate for proposals estimating a full 100 cents. › Appointments preceded by a winding up application produced a deed at only 26%, against 45% otherwise, and those defensive appointments quadrupled from 5% of the FY22 cohort to 19.7% in FY25. › Rescue works when the rescue happens under the DOCA. ASIC’s data pack shows 92% of companies whose deed involved continued trading were still registered two years after the deed completed. |
A regime being used more selectively, not less effectively
The most striking macro trend is that voluntary administration now accounts for a much smaller share of external administrations than it did historically: around 35 to 40% in FY00 to FY06, around 15% in the 2010s, and roughly 10% in FY25 and FY26 (FY26 data to 31 May 2026). That decline should not be read as failure. It is a market sorting process. The 2007 reforms made creditors’ voluntary liquidations faster and cheaper to commence, and small business restructuring (SBR) has since provided an alternative pathway for eligible small companies. Voluntary administration is increasingly reserved for matters where there is something worth restructuring, selling or compromising.
The data bears that out. Almost half of appointments (44%) entered a DOCA, but the likelihood rose sharply with size: 48% of appointments with more than $10 million in liabilities produced a deed, against roughly 15% of appointments with liabilities between $1 and $250,000. Most sub-$1 million administrations ended in liquidation with no proposal ever put to creditors, after a median VA cost of around $68,000. ASIC pointedly asks why VA is being used in those cases at all. For smaller businesses with limited assets, no trading capacity and no fundable proposal, the process may simply add cost before an inevitable liquidation. For larger businesses, corporate groups and situations where funding or a sale can be achieved quickly, it remains one of the most commercially flexible tools available.
The DOCA is doing three different jobs
Of the 1,500 approved deeds, nearly half (49%) involved the business continuing to trade after execution. A further 22% involved a sale of the business or assets, and roughly 22% involved no ongoing trading and no sale, operating instead as a funded compromise supported by director or third-party contributions and the exclusion of related party claims. In practice, the DOCA has evolved into three models.
The rescue DOCA. The business continues and creditors accept a compromise because there is a realistic path to survival. This is closest to the statutory object in s 435A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth): maximising the chances of the company, or as much as possible of its business, continuing in existence.
The sale DOCA. The administration preserves value long enough for a business or asset sale. That may not save the company, but it can save jobs, preserve goodwill and beat a break-up liquidation.
The composition DOCA. The company has no meaningful operating future, but creditors receive a better and faster return through a funded compromise than in a liquidation. There is nothing inherently improper about this model. But it is where the legal and policy tension can be seen sharply, because a funded deed can reduce the scrutiny of director conduct, related party dealings, insolvent trading and voidable transactions that a liquidator would otherwise pursue. ASIC flags the tension itself, as does its data pack: administrators recorded possible offences in around 71% of administrations at the s 439A stage. In most composition deeds, in other words, there was something a liquidator would have investigated. The better question for creditors is not whether the deed pays more cents in the dollar, but whether it produces a genuinely better outcome after accounting for the investigation and recovery rights being given up.
Creditors are voting for certainty over quantum
One of the most revealing threads in the data concerns how creditors actually behave when a DOCA proposal is put. Administrators recommended approval of 95% of DOCA proposals, and creditors followed that recommendation 89% of the time. Of the small number of proposals administrators recommended against, around 42% were approved anyway. The conversion rates are equally telling: even where the administrator’s high estimate of the deed dividend was just 1 to 10 cents in the dollar, around 88% of those proposals still became deeds, barely lower than proposals estimating a full 100 cents.
This is the report’s subtext headline. Creditors are not holding out for quantum; they are voting for certainty. A modest but funded, near-term dividend consistently beats a speculative liquidation recovery that depends on litigation, time and cost. Once a credible proposal is on the table, approval is close to a formality. That places enormous practical weight on the quality and candour of the s 439A report, because the meeting itself is rarely where the contest happens. For DOCA proponents, a well-constructed and adequately funded proposal will very likely pass. For administrators, the same fact cuts the other way: because creditors so rarely push back, the administrator’s independent analysis is, in practice, the principal safeguard in the process.
Related party exclusions are a central feature, not a footnote
83% of deeds excluded some or all related party claims, and 63% involved third-party contributions; just over half featured both. The scale involved is easy to miss, because ASIC’s headline liability figure excludes related party debt by design. The data pack shows related party unsecured claims of $19.7 billion, present in three quarters of all administrations, sitting alongside the $71 billion of arm’s-length liabilities.
Properly used, related party exclusions are a powerful restructuring tool. In many SME and family-owned administrations, related party debt would otherwise swamp the creditor pool and distort voting and dividend outcomes, and the exclusion converts an unattractive proposal into one that gives trade, employee and statutory creditors a meaningful return. It also reflects commercial reality: directors, shareholders and associated entities may need to give up or defer their claims if they want creditor support.
But if related party claims are being excluded in most deeds, the integrity of the process rests heavily on disclosure. Creditors need to understand not only who is excluded, but why, what those claims were realistically worth, what claims are being released in return, and whether any related party receives value by another route. The next frontier in DOCA disputes may well be the adequacy of disclosure about related party bargains. A deed that looks attractive on a headline dividend is vulnerable if creditors were not given a clear picture of the economic exchange.
Third-party money does the heavy lifting, and trading profits fail
Third-party contributions are central to modern deed practice: almost two thirds of approved deeds involved one, contributing just over $1 billion in new funding. In many cases the contribution was not incidental, it was the deed fund. Where a contribution was made, it comprised the whole fund in almost half of deeds, and 80% or more of it in 64%.
Three practical consequences follow. First, the funder’s identity, capacity and incentives matter: a proposal funded by a director or related entity should be analysed differently from one funded by an unrelated investor. Secondly, timing matters: a promised future contribution is not the same as cash held or secured at execution. ASIC’s data is emphatic on this point. 63% of deeds that failed and entered liquidation were funded from trading profits, against just 30% of those that wholly effectuated, and trading-profit deeds took nearly twice as long to complete (a median of 362 days against 195). Thirdly, deed drafting matters. If the value proposition depends on future contributions, the deed needs clear default provisions, reporting obligations, enforcement rights and consequences for non-payment. A deed should not merely describe an optimistic commercial plan. It should allocate risk if the plan fails.
Early advice changes outcomes, and the window is closing faster
Appointments preceded by winding up proceedings were far less likely to produce a deed: only around 26% did, against 45% where there was no application on foot. This cohort is growing quickly. A winding up application preceded 5% of appointments commenced in FY22 and 19.7% of those commenced in FY25, a quadrupling that tracks the ATO’s return to full enforcement. By the time a winding up application is filed, cash has deteriorated, creditor confidence has eroded and there is rarely time to build a credible proposal. The administration may still create breathing space, but it is far less likely to produce a genuine restructure.
For accountants and corporate advisers, the point is practical: intervention before the creditors move to issue statutory demands and winding up applications can actually change the outcome. The warning signs usually cross an adviser’s desk first: ATO arrears, unpaid superannuation, tightening supplier terms, stretched debtors, growing reliance on related party funding. Those indicators should prompt a deliberate pathway decision, not simply another round of creditor negotiation. Waiting until the application is filed preserves a theoretical option and destroys the practical one.
SBR is reshaping VA's role, and VA is the group regime
ASIC links the declining share of administrations partly to SBR’s growth. Interestingly, the data does not show small companies abandoning VA: the share of appointments with under $1 million in liabilities held broadly steady, around 30% in FY22 and 27% in FY25, and ASIC concedes it cannot measure substitution between the two processes. A persistent cohort of small companies keeps entering VA, and most of them end in liquidation with nothing put to creditors. The choice of pathway should turn on the restructuring problem, not the company’s size alone: SBR is debtor-in-possession and efficient, but VA delivers what SBR cannot, an independent registered liquidator taking control, which matters where there are trust deficits, creditor hostility or complex trading issues.
One structural point deserves more attention than the report gives it. Around 15% of grouped appointments involved two or more related companies, but those groups accounted for roughly 40% of all companies entering VA. SBR has no meaningful answer to group insolvency: intercompany loans, cross-guarantees and shared operations demand a process that can hold a group together under independent control. On this data, voluntary administration is functioning as Australia’s de facto group restructuring regime, and any future reform debate should treat it as such.
The dividend numbers are encouraging, and VA is still a rescue regime
Almost 90% of wholly effectuated deeds (excluding creditors’ trust matters) paid a dividend to unsecured creditors, averaging around 21 cents in the dollar with a median of 11.5 cents. Deed administrators paid roughly $694 million in dividends overall, and where priority employee creditors participated, the median dividend rate was 100 cents in the dollar across wages, leave and redundancy classes. The comparison that matters sits underneath: administrators’ median high estimate of a liquidation dividend was nil. Well-structured deeds produce returns where liquidation would likely produce nothing.
The durability data is just as important, and it appears only in the data pack. Of companies whose deed wholly effectuated, 80% were still registered two years later; for deeds where the business continued to trade, 92%. Deeds that complete tend to hold. The caveats, nevertheless, are: averages are lifted by outliers, creditors’ trust distributions are not captured in ASIC’s data at all, and some deeds remain on foot. Creditors’ trusts themselves stay useful for larger and more complex appointments. Over half of mining-sector deeds used one, but they should never operate as a black box. Creditors should be told who the trustee is, how claims will be adjudicated, what it will cost, and when distributions are expected.
The cost question is unavoidable
Median approved remuneration was around $68,000 for a VA (average: $206,000) and around $33,000 for a deed, with a median of roughly $111,000 across both phases for wholly effectuated deeds. Costs rose sharply with complexity: the median for appointments spanning 11 or more companies was around $749,000. Three ratios will feature in the policy debate to come. In the typical completed matter, total remuneration represented around 5% of reported liabilities, around 40% of reported assets, and around 66% of the dividends actually paid.
That last figure will be quoted, and it deserves context rather than alarm. Insolvency work is front-loaded, risk-laden and labour-intensive regardless of asset size, and cost is not the same as inefficiency. But the ratio does mean the process only makes economic sense where it creates value that liquidation could not: a rescued business, a better sale, or a funded compromise. Where none of those is realistically available, this is the strongest number in the report for choosing a different pathway. Advisers should ask at the start: what value is the process expected to create, and who is funding that value creation? If there is no clear answer, the appointment may not be the right one.
What to do
- Choose the pathway deliberately. Match the process to the restructuring problem, not the company’s size. Complexity, creditor hostility, group structures and the need for independent control point to VA; a simple debt compromise for an eligible small company points to SBR.
- Test the thesis at intake. Every appointment should begin with a stated thesis: rescue, sale or compromise. If the honest thesis is delay, advise a different pathway, in writing.
- Move before the creditor does. Once a winding up application is on foot, the odds of a deed roughly halve. Clients with ATO arrears, unpaid super or tightening supplier terms need a pathway decision now, not another negotiation.
- Structure the funding. Front-load contributions, take security over deferred obligations, and build default and termination mechanics into the deed. A deed reliant on future trading profits is a forecast, and the data shows forecasts fail.
- Insist on disclosure. The s 439A report is where the decision is really made. It should value what creditors are giving up, including recovery claims and related party bargains, not just compare headline dividends.
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Further Information
For further information about voluntary administrations, deeds of company arrangement, restructuring options, creditor strategy or early distress indicators, contact the author of this article.
