News Room

YOUR company is financially distressed and the vultures are circling. If something isn't done everything will be lost. Who do you call?

This is a job for a turnaround management specialist, an evolving field of consultants dedicated to restoring value to struggling enterprises and avoiding terminal insolvency.

Since business was invented, one man's misfortune has been another's advantage, a credo reinforced by literature and films featuring usurious lenders, dodgy accountants and rapacious lawyers. But, according to Turnaround Management Association Australia, this perception does a disservice to a niche industry of modern professionals who have the survival and renewed prosperity of companies as their prime concern. They also have an ethical code.

The legitimacy of the field has been recognised by the introduction this year of three executive certificate courses developed in consultation with TMAA and offered within the master of business administration program at the University of Technology, Sydney. Each of the courses accountancy for turnaround, management for turnaround and law for turnaround will be taught by academic staff from the UTS faculties of business and law and will count as subject credits in an MBA. Course completions will grant accreditation with TMAA as turnaround practitioners.
TMAA's parent body was established in the US as a nonprofit industry association dedicated to corporate renewal in 1988. US membership now stands at 9000.

The Australian chapter was established in 2003 and has attracted 300 members.

Local president Adrian Loader says TMAA was initially heavily sponsored by the ANZ bank "because they saw the merit in it".

Loader says he "got on the bandwagon about three years ago" and the association really got going "when insolvency practitioners wanted to promote turnaround rather than just corporate liquidation". Along with many bankers, Loader is also a member of the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Australia, as are about 30 per cent of TMAA members.

"I think there is renewed emphasis on corporate turnaround because most people don't want there to be a whole number of liquidations or administrations in Australia." TMAA members include "private equity owners [and] some mezzanine lenders, people who provide capital into restructuring companies," Loader says. "You've also got the major banks [of which] NAB is probably the most active. Then you have advisers, [including] 90 per cent of the major restructuring lawyers [plus] the accountants. "Then there are operational turnaround people as well, people who go into businesses and try to improve the profit."

TMAA accreditation has no regulatory authority, nor does the organisation find work for its members. It sees itself as "an educational and networking opportunity for people to learn and develop skills in turnaround". But, as the dominant industry association, its imprimatur is developing a practical clout by virtue of its critical mass.

When UTS began drafting its certificate courses, it drew on information from the US organisation, which introduced a certified turnaround professional designation in 1993. The university has developed an academic program  specific to Australia. It was informed by "detailed discussions" with TMAA, including input from industry specialists, such as Loader, who will be guest lecturers during the courses.