Operations continue, even though all the rules have changed.
Once an insolvency application has been filed, almost everything changes for a company except its day-to-day business: customers want to know whether deliveries will continue, suppliers demand payment in advance, the trade credit insurer has withdrawn cover, and every payment suddenly needs approval. It is in this phase that it is decided whether the end result is a business capable of continuing or merely assets to be realised.
We support the continuation of business operations in opened and preliminary proceedings, in business management, in operations and in communication with all parties involved.
What you gain
- 1The business remains able to act. Production, purchasing and sales continue while the procedural questions are being resolved.
- 2The special processes are in place quickly. We set up payment approval, separation of the estate and liquidity monitoring in the first few days, not in the first few weeks.
- 3One point of contact for customers, suppliers and insurers. We take over ongoing communication, relieving the insolvency administration and management.
- 4Reliable figures for the decision on continuation. Whether continuing the business increases or consumes the insolvency estate must be calculated, not estimated.
- 5Ready for the investor process. A business that has been continued in an orderly manner can be sold. One that has come to a standstill hardly can.
When the business is to continue during the proceedings
Financial management during the proceedings follows different rules than in normal business. Liabilities from the period before the application are no longer serviced, payments from the estate require approval, and the accounts must clearly separate the period before the application from the period of the estate. Anyone who fails to manage this changeover within a few days loses track precisely when it matters.
We set up these processes and run them:
Business management support for the insolvency administration
Insolvency administrators of businesses capable of continuing regularly face the same bottleneck: the legal conduct of the proceedings is covered, but running the business ties up capacity that is needed elsewhere. For this, we provide an experienced interim manager who takes over the business and supports the administration, with figures that meet the requirements of the proceedings and with documentation that makes decisions verifiable.
The scope ranges from selective support in accounting to full operational management of the business for the duration of the proceedings.
Communicate before you are asked
To a considerable extent, insolvency proceedings are a communication problem. Customers withdraw orders because nobody tells them that deliveries will continue. Suppliers stop supplying because they do not know whether they will be paid. Employees resign because they expect the business to close. Each of these departures reduces what can ultimately be sold or restructured.
We take over ongoing coordination with customers, suppliers, banks and trade credit insurers, with the aim of maintaining supply relationships and the order backlog. If an investor process is on the horizon, communication is geared towards it from the outset: what a buyer acquires in a transfer of the business by way of an asset deal (übertragende Sanierung) is the running business with its customers, not the fixed assets.
