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Business Recovery support to you and your clients

Hart Shaw Business Recovery & Insolvency offer a range of support services to help you to help your client if they are experiencing financial difficulties. These services include turnaround, refinancing, disposal and insolvency advice.

It is important to spot the early warning signs that a business is in difficulty and then offer specialist advice as this will increase the options available to the business and thus the chances of successful recovery. Typical early warning signs include:

Concerns when finalising accounts

You are about to sign off a set of accounts and have concerns about the ongoing viability of the company.

Increasing debtor days

Increasing debtor days due to slow paying customers can put strain on cash flow and can be an indicator of other underlying problems.

Increasing creditor days

Extending creditor payment terms, if planned, can be an effective technique to improve cash flow. However, if not managed, it can be an indicator that your client has cash flow problems.

Reduced turnover and margins

A fall in turnover and margins requires a management response which if not done will put at risk the future of the business.

Late payment of PAYE & VAT

None or late payment of PAYE and VAT is often a sign that a business or company is experiencing difficulty. We can assist in approaching HM Revenue & Customs to negotiate time to pay arrangements.

Your client suffers a large bad debt

The failure of a key customer can have a double effect on your clients business - a large bad debt and the loss of future turnover. Taking appropriate advice can alleviate the effects.

Bank pressure

A hardening of the banks attitude to your client, whether it be pressure for a reduction in the overdraft facility, requests for increased security and guarantees or increasing bank charges.

Returned payments

Returned payments indicates that your client has, at the very least, poor financial controls and is more likely to be a result of cash flow problems.   

Client seeks redundancy advice

Scaling back a business and declaring redundancies may be necessary in ensuring that the business survives. It is however important that professional advice is sought to ensure that proper procedures are followed and that your client is aware of all options before decisions are taken.

Additional services

The Business Recovery team works closely with Hart Shaw’s Taxation and Corporate Finance departments, who are able to advise on the following:

Complex corporate structure

To reduce the administration costs of having a large number of dormant companies within a clients corporate structure, they may wish to remove these companies through solvent liquidations, or even restructure the business to make it more tax efficient.

Property and trade

Should a client own property and trade within their business and the trade is experiencing difficulties then the risk of losing the property will increase. Seeking the advice of Hart Shaw’s Tax team could give your client further options to protect the property itself by splitting the trade through solvent liquidation.

Raising capital

If your client is seeking urgent turnaround capital this can be accessed via Hart Shaw’s Corporate Finance team, who have access to a complete range of funders and funding opportunities.

Business disposal

If you client feels they have no other option than to sell their business, while they still have a business to sell, entering in to a sale agreement is a viable option. The Corporate Finance team at Hart Shaw specialises in business disposals and can manage the process from marketing the business for sale to sourcing potential buyers through successful implementation of an exit strategy.

Re-financing

Re-financing current operations can boost cash options for a business and securing funding to re-finance current facilities can help secure the interests of your clients business in the long term.

Working with Hart Shaw

By working together we can help you with your clients and so help protect and maintain your client base. A successful recovery will mean not only a retained client, but a strengthened client relationship.

If you have a client who is showing signs of distress or have any queries with regards to our specialist services, please contact any of the below via email or telephone on 0114 251 8850:

Christopher Brown, Business Recovery & Insolvency Partner - chris.brown@hartshaw.co.uk

Steve Vickers, Tax Partner - steve.vickers@hartshaw.co.uk

Steve Bell, Head of Corporate Finance - steve.bell@hartshaw.co.uk

Your general contact at Hart Shaw is Sarah Anyan, who can be contacted via 07876 765592 or sarah.anyan@hartshaw.co.uk.