Who do we help?
Who Do we Help?

Who Do We Help?
We advise and represent small-to-medium sized businesses facing an insolvency challenge.
We explore all avenues to protect and recover value for the owners of the business.

We help a variety of
small-to-medium businesses
- Businesses with up to 200 employees
- Businesses that are established with goodwill value at stake
- Businesses in up-and-down industries: construction, transport, professional and technical services, retail, mining
- Businesses owned by an entrepreneur, small group, or family

Financial crisis occurs
- Losing principal customer or large customer collapses
- Owner sickness or absence
- Tax problem
- Big project or key contract drains the business
- Adverse outcome in litigation
- Crisis is compounded by accounting issues, thin working capital, management deadlock/capacity limits and/or low bargaining power in a highly competitive industry

Current professional advisers don’t have the skills to help
- Generalist tax accountant
- Commercial lawyer
- Management consultant
- Phoenix operators
- But no one is put forward with up-to-date and relevant experience
Why? SMEs don’t always get the assistance they need – the sorts of advice that large corporates take for granted isn’t readily available

Who do you trust to handle this?
- Directors may never have engaged an insolvency specialist before
- You may have heard stories about overcharging and foul play
- Your accountant has referred you to someone who wants to meet you at a café or pub (phoenix operator)
- You met an insolvency practitioner who is only offering a formal appointment (voluntary administration)
- You need a co-ordinating adviser to work with accountants, financiers, creditors and other stakeholders

What are the immediate options?
- Rectification of accounts and cash flow analysis may be enough
- Pre-pack insolvency arrangement or sale
- Safe harbour restructure
- Formal appointment (liquidation or voluntary administration)
Read our infographics:

What is the first step?
- Call Sewell & Kettle to discuss the matter confidentially
- Discuss different options including:
- Safe harbour restructure
- Pre-pack insolvency arrangement or sale
- Formal appointment (liquidation or voluntary administration)
- Engage the firm to handle the matter

How do you evaluate what to do next?
- Get the businesses financials in or der
- Look at the structure of the business and start to develop a plan
- Use legal professional privilege to protect the discussions and analysis
- Explore all the options thoroughly
- Take steps to ensure the business has sufficient working capital in the short term
- Ensure that there is optimal asset protection for the directors/owners in any plan