Guide to MANAGING FINANCIAL CRISES & RESTRUCTURINGS

Carillion. Monarch Airlines. BHS. All household names that in recent times have collapsed into insolvency. What losses did those collapses cause their investors and lenders? And their employees, suppliers, landlords and pensioners? And the taxman?


These companies all experienced a financial crisis, which their directors tried to mitigate in the hope that a restructuring would enable the business to continue. They spent months engaging with their financial stakeholders and incurred millions in advisory costs.


Directors in such situations face many challenges. How long have they got? What are their priorities? How will they maintain the confidence of capital providers? Who should they turn to for advice? What are the pitfalls? If their efforts prove unsuccessful, who will come after them?


What can financial stakeholders with access to information do? And how should other stakeholders without such access interpret the signals coming out of the situation? And if new capital providers see an opportunity, what should they be looking for?


Sizeable financial crises and restructurings involve a host of expensive advisers. What expertise do they offer? How do they hunt for business? How can their clients get the best out of them? Are their interests fully aligned? What pain will they share if their clients fail?


This industry insider’s account provides the first-ever look inside the opaque world of UK financial crises and restructurings. In the past these were black swan events, but in a world in which more and more acquisitions are funded on a high-risk basis they are becoming increasingly common.


The difference in value between good and bad outcomes can be enormous. If this book helps to improve outcomes, it is no idle boast that the country could save billions. The Carillion case study, based on information made available by the parliamentary inquiry and in the company’s market announcements, illustrates this.


Who would benefit from reading this book?


- Company directors and executives going through their first crisis.


- Financial stakeholders of a company in a financial crisis or restructuring – investors, lenders, pension trustees and possibly regulators – who will need a strategy and tactics for protecting the positions they are managing.


- Potential buyers, investors and lenders for whom the situation is a potential opportunity, who need to make investment decisions and mitigate their downside risks.


- Professional advisers in different disciplines who advise these various groups


- Stakeholders such as employees, landlords, customers, suppliers, tax authorities, regulators and unions, who lack access to information and decision-makers but have to make inferences about what they are not seeing or hearing


- Those politicians, regulators, business forums and journalists with an interest in directors’ failings, weak corporate governance, excessive executive pay, greedy advisers, the value of audits and safeguarding pension benefits. Because more effective governance and changes in laws, regulations and behaviours could help to avoid and mitigate financial crises.


- And business students, who have traditionally found elective courses on restructuring and turnaround appealing.