One of the most experienced managers of insolvent companies yesterday expressed scepticism over the alleged sudden withdrawal of foreign banks from the Australian market.Steve Sherman of Ferrier Hodgson spoke at a "liquidators' lunch" in Sydney yesterday, organised by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.Relating his experience from managing workouts for companies such as Allco Finance Group, Sherman said: "From the banking syndicates we have in relation to some of the more detailed restructuring and recovery exercises there is a clear indication from the foreign banks that an exit strategy is their preferred course of action."In saying that though, the support that they are giving to the major banks, particularly the major banks that are driving a lot of the syndicated work, is still there."They are not unilaterally jumping ship. But it is plain to me when you sit in those processes that they would prefer to be exiting. Who knows whether they will come back?"I was in Singapore late last week and met with a large foreign bank. Their attitude is that they have made the decision to remain in the Australasian region for the long haul. They have pulled their horns back a bit but they do not see themselves unilaterally leaving."There is some limited evidence to the contrary, though.Treasury official Godwin Grech last night told a Senate committee he had sought commitments of continued support for Australian property loans from Sydney-based foreign banks earlier this year, The Australian reported."It was made clear to us that they could not, given their respective predicaments in their home markets, commit to give categorical or cast-iron guarantees," Grech told the committee."Indeed, one institution made it clear it was no longer in any position to write any business in Australia and was winding back and closing their loan book in Australia." Tony McGrath of McGrathNicol told the liquidators lunch his gut feeling was that the current downturn was bigger and deeper than the recession of 1990/91.He said Australia was very much at the early stages of the unravelling and it would be some time before we hit the bottom."The companies that we have seen fall over to date have really been the classic high-risk, high-leverage operations that you read about. It's feeding through the economy and we will shortly be dealing with what I would regard as very good, very sound businesses and the challenge for people like us will be to try and determine more active solutions for those problems."Business Spectator