Distressed & Special Situations — Independent Process Leadership Under Pressure

What Makes Distressed Situations Different

In a distressed situation, the normal rules of corporate finance don't apply. Timelines are compressed. Information is asymmetric. Counterparties — creditors, investors, regulators — have their own advisors, their own objectives, and a structural advantage over unprepared management teams.

The single most important factor in how a distressed situation resolves is process quality. Who controls the flow of information. Who defines the options being evaluated. Who manages the negotiations. A well-run distressed process consistently outperforms a poorly run one — regardless of the starting position.

What We Do

We take process ownership of distressed and special situations on behalf of management. We assess the full situation — financial position, stakeholder dynamics, legal constraints, option set — and design a process that maximizes the achievable outcome given those constraints.

We manage the external advisor ecosystem: restructuring advisors, insolvency counsel, financial advisors, and other specialists. We coordinate information flow to creditors and stakeholders. We drive negotiations toward the best available resolution — without being paralyzed by the pressure that characterizes these situations.

Management stays in the room for the decisions that matter. We run everything else.

Special Situations We Cover

• —Acute liquidity crisis and cash runway management
• —Pre-insolvency process design and stakeholder navigation
• —Creditor negotiation and restructuring plan management
• —Regulatory intervention situations and consent processes
• —Distressed M&A — selling or acquiring a distressed asset
• —Stakeholder conflict resolution with competing agendas
• —Post-restructuring stabilization and process wind-down

The Experience Behind the Process

The experience behind ExS includes working on both sides of distressed situations — advising on distressed acquisitions in PE, managing financial restructurings of PE-held companies under creditor pressure, and building proprietary liquidity management tools for listed companies in acute financial distress.

That breadth of perspective — understanding how creditors think, how restructuring advisors position their advice, how boards react under pressure — is what makes the difference in a distressed process. It's not generic corporate finance expertise. It's specific, earned experience.