Unpacking the Business Rescue Deal of the Year

The market has seen an uptick in Business Rescue deals over the past few years as financial unrest and COVID have forced the hands of many. At the DealMakers Annual Gala Awards in South Africa last month, the 2021 Business Rescue Transaction of the Year Award was presented to Group Five.
 
Last month, we hosted a fireside chat on ‘Unpacking the Business Rescue Deal of the Year’, hosted by Arie Maree, Regional Growth Director MEA from Ansarada and attended by the Group’s key advisors: Patrick Birkett from Birkett Stewart McHendrie and Dave Lake from Metis Strategic Advisors. 
 

What is a business rescue deal?

‘Business rescue’ or Chapter 6 is one of the restructuring tools in South Africa, commonly compared to Chapter 11 in the US. It gives the company rescue protection from its creditors and enables practitioners to effectively take management control over the company, enabling quick decisions to be made.
 
Frequently, companies enter business rescue far too late; for example, a few days before the next salary run is due which they're unable to pay.
 

Saving the ‘unsaveable’

Group Five was a large, broadly-based group of companies covering construction, engineering, property, manufacturing, and infrastructure management, and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. After already suffering substantial financial losses, a power project in Ghana went disastrously wrong, leaving Group Five further indebted and with few options left.

The advisory teams broke down the complex business rescue process to attack it piecemeal and were able to save the majority of the Group Five businesses with exceptional outcomes.
 
Watch the recording to learn more about the highs and lows of this complex Business Rescue Deal, and how they used the Ansarada platform to do it all.