Restructuring Consulting: Securing Liquidity and Making Earnings Carry Again

In a strained situation three clocks run at once, and they run at different speeds. The first is the liquidity clock. It measures in days and weeks and does not negotiate: on the due date the money is there, or it is not. The second is the earnings clock. Price adjustments, cost programmes and site decisions take effect over quarters, usually over a full financial year. The third is the confidence clock at banks, shareholders, suppliers and the company’s own workforce. It runs the most quietly and is the hardest to wind back: a credit line that has been cut rarely returns to its old level on its own.

The actual subject of the work is the order of play between these three clocks. A cost programme that only lands in the next financial year does not help a company whose liquidity clock runs out in eight weeks. The other way round, a purely liquidity-driven step that hits suppliers without warning can speed up the confidence clock so far that the rebuild is no longer financeable afterwards. This is where restructuring consulting differs from a straightforward cost project, and it is what turnaround consulting is engaged for: not a longer list of measures, but a defensible sequence. For that reason the starting point is not a list of measures but a shared set of figures — a liquidity forecast at weekly level, an income statement that separates lasting from one-off effects, and an overview of the commitments already given. Only then can it be decided which measure pays into which clock. In practice that ordering work is what turnaround management contributes: it holds the sequence when several parties are pushing for different first steps.

What restructuring consulting does not deliver. It replaces neither legal nor audit review. Questions on the duty to file for insolvency, on liability risks for the management, on the stabilisation and restructuring framework under the German StaRUG or on self-administration are legal questions; in every individual case they belong with the professionals admitted to practise, and this page describes them for orientation only. It is also not a promise about the behaviour of third parties: whether a bank extends a line, a shareholder injects capital or a major customer stays is decided by those parties themselves. And it does not take the decision away from the management — outside experience can lay out options cleanly, weigh them and give reasons; the company has to answer for them.

Billing runs through our network per day of deployment; there are no project lump sums and no success-based components. The budget comes from two figures: the rate and the number of days. In a restructuring the second is the harder one to plan, because the share of on-site presence and the rhythm shift over the course of the work.

What moves the rate. First the seniority of the role and how close it sits to the decisions: whoever leads a legal entity or appears in front of financing partners sits clearly above a role that supports. Then urgency — an appointment within a few days narrows the field of candidates. Then the industry: whoever knows the cost structure and the usual contracts of a sector brings in time that is otherwise lost at the start. The share of on-site presence moves the rate in both directions: task force assignments with a high presence share sit above mandates that run mostly remote. Finally the duration — a mandate over twelve months sits below a six-week assignment per day.

The ranges from our own role inventory, as they stand on the respective role pages. For the commercial groundwork — liquidity forecast, income statement, metrics — €700 – €1,300 per day (Freelance Financial Controller, Freelance Cash Flow Manager, Freelance Business Controller, Freelance Treasury Manager). For the operational lever work on processes and cost €800 – €1,600 (Freelance Lean Management Consultant, Freelance Operational Excellence Consultant). For steering a mandate with crisis experience €1,300 – €2,200 (Freelance Crisis Manager). Leadership on a temporary basis sits above that: €1,000 – €1,900 for plant and production management (Interim Production Manager, Interim Plant Manager) and €1,300 – €2,500 for the commercial and the overall responsibility (Interim CFO, Interim COO, Interim CEO). These are ranges with context, not fixed prices — where a profile sits within its range is decided by the cut of the mandate.

Budget in stages rather than in one sum. It makes sense to think in three stages. The situation assessment is the smallest and can be tightly bounded without pre-empting the way forward. The concept stage is larger, because functions have to be involved and planning models built. The implementation stage is the longest and the one that can best be measured against the effect achieved. After each stage the next one can be decided afresh — the practical advantage over budgeting in a single sum.

Difference to engaging a firm or a law firm. A restructuring firm or a law firm is engaged as a house and provides a team; billing follows their own models. Through our network a named person is engaged for a period, whose daily rate and profile are fixed beforehand. One point matters here: a freelance assignment does not replace an attestation or an expert opinion. Review and attestation under a standard such as IDW S6, and every legal assessment, remain services of the professionals admitted for them; their fees are deliberately not quantified here.