Based on the author’s extensive experience in over 50 major turnaround cases over 25 years of practice, this text serves as a compendium of what to do and what to avoid. It looks at the rise of turnaround management as a specific function, appropriately distinguishing the roles of formal insolvency and pre-insolvency procedures, especially consensual procedures, and at understanding that not all cases of financial distress need be resolved by recourse to law. Where, increasingly, law has moved in to stake a position, the author charts the various regimes encountered and their merits or demerits. What makes this work particularly notable is the author’s reference to case studies, many drawn from his experience, and how the materials in each chapter can be understood through analysing real-life scenarios.

The text moves through the life cycle of a business, looking at the role of turnaround managers and where their involvement becomes critical, in particular at how the “decline curve” and crunch points must signal the need for action. Essential pre-requisites for a successful turnaround are listed, particularly the role of adequate information and identifying priorities for action. Assessing enterprise value and resolving the problems that have led to distress form a natural part of the work leading up to a business plan, in which issues such as managerial reputation, negotiation strategies and operational aspects of the restructuring all play a part. How procedures come to an end and the reconciliation of creditor and debtor interests then form the backdrop to the overall conclusion of this work, not forgetting of course the necessary chapter focusing on cross-border issues.

In summary, a very useful and worthy text, not simply for the “war stories”, but especially for the distillation of experience and reference to developments in a number of jurisdictions, lending this work a very strong comparative feel.

“This article was first published in Eurofenix, the journal of INSOL Europe (edition 76).
Further information about Eurofenix can be found at https://www.insol-europe.org/publications/about-eurofenix
Further information about INSOL Europe can be found at https://www.insol-europe.org

 

Paul J. Omar, Eurofenix, the journal of INSOL Europe