Interim Management

Situation: The entire corporate group was facing financial risks due to its most important overseas production site having incurred losses over multiple years. The business was also at risk of losing its largest global customer. Management shortcomings and a lack of restructuring expertise at the US site resulted in the company being given a negative going concern outlook and a lower rating, and the business was under threat of insolvency.

Solution: A Roland Berger IMPEX team, consisting of an experienced CRO and CFO alongside other consultants, was deployed to the site concerned for ten months. The team restructured processes to improve efficiency, developed a 13-week liquidity plan and came up with action plans to cut costs. They adjusted the KPIs and established a new tracking system to enable better control. To permanently secure the corporate turnaround, the company recruited new and better-qualified staff and optimized customer service for key accounts.

Effect: Eight months after the restructuring measures were implemented, turnaround had been achieved with measurable results. Customer confidence and loyalty had improved dramatically and significant new accounts had been acquired. The IMPEX team's successful turnaround program has since served the group as a template for implementing targeted actions at other production sites worldwide.

Situation: A German parent company was not achieving the targets it had planned for its US site despite pouring money into the facility over several years. The initiatives and measures the company had been taking were not sufficient to make the site profitable, partly because they lacked the required level of detail and were not calculated with sufficient precision. Equity and debt ratios were at a critical level, requiring a financial plan including deleveraging. Without rapid (balance sheet) restructuring, the survival of the site appeared to be in jeopardy.

Solution: A team consisting of a CFO and consultants from Roland Berger IMPEX supported the turnaround at the US site with a comprehensive plan, including project management and management reporting. By working constructively and pragmatically with the client's team and coaching the staff intensively, the IMPEX team established a permanent system of measures management alongside reliable liquidity and business planning. In addition, they supported the handover of responsibilities to the new CEO and the appointment of a new HR Director.

Effect: The interim CFO's deployment led to the establishment of a stable and motivated management team on the ground. Overall, the measures gave the Management Board renewed confidence, partly through the establishment of a new partner in the value chain and the acquisition of a strategic OEM as a customer to drive revenue growth.

Situation: Following rapid growth, this corporate group had become highly complex and suffered from insufficient integration and substantial losses from the companies it had acquired. Rising energy and payroll costs and falling margins were driving losses and reducing operating cash flow. High levels of debt and repayment obligations had exhausted the company's liquidity headroom.

Solution: Roland Berger IMPEX supplied a CRO to join the company's top management, together with a team of restructuring specialists, whose first job was to develop and implement measures to secure liquidity. The interim team advised the company to restructure the business by means of self-administered insolvency. While the IMPEX team delivered a restructuring program over eight months and negotiated the necessary social plan, the CRO took on the role of CEO on an interim basis. This also included managing customer relationships and stabilizing the company's situation through close customer management and substantial price rises. The IMPEX team was also responsible for reporting to creditors.

Effect: Debtor-in-possession proceedings were successfully concluded; the company could be sold to several investors as part of a parallel M&A process and creditors were fully satisfied. Altogether 1,100 of the 1,300 jobs were protected and all customer relationships were maintained throughout the self-administered insolvency process.

Situation: An international engineering services provider's German operations had been making continuous losses for more than eight years. The parent company had already helped out several times with millions of euros of extra funding, but even more cash was needed. Since the German companies were an essential part of a global business unit, the unit itself was also making big losses. A change in the parent company's strategy made further restructuring measures difficult.

Solution: The Roland Berger IMPEX team supplied the engineering services provider with a CRO for nine months who joined the parent company's Executive Committee and took over the management of the German operations and the associated business unit. They formulated an exit strategy for the German companies and also took measures to secure liquidity, streamlined the project portfolio and implemented a cost cutting program. One of the German companies was put into orderly liquidation, while the remaining companies were sold in a successful M&A process initiated by the CRO. The rest of the global business unit was restructured and integrated into other divisions.

Effect: The parent company's profits were substantially improved by the sale of the German companies. The restructuring plan largely avoided the need to liquidate the German companies; the M&A process instead enabled a low-risk exit and protected jobs. With a consistent plan in place, the CRO was also able to achieve a high staff retention rate throughout the exit phase.

Situation: Most German hospitals find themselves in a challenging situation, with around half facing very difficult economic circumstances. In this particular case, the hospital management had failed to make important adaptations in the past. This, combined with other problems, had led to insufficient capacity utilization and a continuously deteriorating financial situation.

Solution: An interim CRO from Roland Berger IMPEX stabilized the business by taking on the role of executive director. His leadership, which above all fostered proactive communication with all stakeholders, ensured that previously defined strategic measures could be implemented quickly and further measures added. The hospital's management was reinforced early on with additional leadership personnel. This meant that, following the CRO's nine-month mandate, the management was able to develop and implement further necessary measures and a comprehensive strategy for the future without the need for external support.

Effect: The district hospital was once again available for patients 24/7, giving it a good basis for further financial recovery. The deployment of the IMPEX CRO fixed the staffing situation and enabled successful delivery of the transformation the hospital needed.

Situation: After more than ten years in business, an international payment service provider had missed its profitability targets by some considerable margin. The owners wanted a review of the strategy and support from impartial management personnel for the next steps.

Solution: Roland Berger IMPEX supplied the company with a Chief Transformation Officer (CTO), who supported the strategy development process together with a team of consultants. The CTO's close involvement in the company's day-to-day business motivated staff to take the difficult steps that were necessary and enabled the new strategy to be implemented rigorously. The CTO was in charge of renegotiating the complex contracts and brought in his outside expertise to add to the workforce's existing knowledge base.

Effect: The defined targets were achieved in full and savings amounting to tens of millions were realized. The project paid for itself within just three months.

Situation: Following on from a long phase of highly profitable expansion and consistent internationalization, revenues and margins had latterly been falling for several years. This was due to changes in the market and late-mover competitors coming in, while costs were rising at the same time. A lack of consensus among stakeholders and persistent hopes for an improvement had so far prevented measures towards a sustainable restructuring from being taken. The liquidity gap was substantial.

Solution: A CRO from Roland Berger IMPEX worked with a team of consultants to quickly work out what the priorities were for achieving the turnaround and dealt with key tasks immediately. A loss-making division was shut down in close cooperation with the HR department, while preparations were made for the closure of further sites and offshoring to Asia, and budget plans were adjusted to realistic levels. In addition, the interim management experts created transparency over the product costs so that targeted measures could be taken to reduce personnel costs and mitigate product complexity by eliminating loss-making or irrelevant products. The CRO actively communicated the program of measures to all involved parties, which helped strengthen the confidence of stakeholders like banks, credit insurers and auditors.

Effect: The improved transparency brought about the necessary consensus among shareholders and the Supervisory Board with regard to the restructuring. Eliminating loss-making products and companies enabled the business to avoid tens of millions worth of losses, while at the same time streamlining the organizational structure. A redesigned value chain with a global focus and production offshoring to move close to customer markets in Asia enabled a lasting improvement in customer focus.