T.R.I. - Restructuring The Time Is Now

foreign [Music] and some of you know me and some don't so perhaps I let you in on a little personal Secret I often get asked what is your age how old are you and then I tell them and people look a little bit puzzled and they say what's the story with the gray hair and well to be honest I blame firmly the work in the restructuring space on this it might be the DNA but I blame the work and the restructuring space now today this event illustrates the significant Step Up of the turnaround restructuring and insolvency landscape and ecosystem in the region and to be honest gathered here today are many of the leading practitioners let's see it day in and see it day out see the successes and see the failures and not to forget the regulators as you all know several GCC countries enacted in the last few years new bankruptcy Frameworks and with the vision to ultimately help companies in a structured manner through this difficult time but as well to actually enhance the chances that companies successfully re-emerge from a bankruptcy situation now truth to be told sometimes you better let the ship sink right sometimes a company is beyond saving and in those circumstances we all know it what matters most is then transparent and fast insolvency process that maximizes actually the recovery rates now a few big cases have gone or are still going through those new Frameworks introduced and let's take the example of a large Bahraini company that filed for voluntary bankruptcy protection early 2019 and guess what it seems that only this year actually there was a agreement reached on the financial restructuring so thinking about this that's actually quite a long period isn't it and along the way for sure there were a couple of hiccups here and there now to be honest it shouldn't be a surprise that the new introduced regulatory Frameworks might need some tweaks here and there and that the stakeholders involved meaning many of us here actually need some time to learn the inner workings how those Frameworks actually pan out in practice now in this sense it's important that you know the stakeholders involved in the process meaning many of us here continue the dialogue on how to remove obstacles in the process to make the process more efficient and ultimately enhance chances for success and this is why the consultative Council on the umbrella of the uae's financial restructuring committee was established and this is as well why today we have another great platform for open dialogue as restructuring actually is let's call it growing up I would leave you like to leave you just with three pieces of food for thought and to state with to State the obvious obviously the ideal scenario is fighter performance crisis early so we actually don't get to a bankruptcy crisis and I trust that over time shareholders and management will adopt a more proactive approach in engaging in turn around programs in the earlier stages of the crisis and equally I do believe that lenders have a great opportunity ahead to take a more proactive approach to get earlier in the driver's seat to actually push turnaround agenders on troubled companies in the earlier stages of a crisis secondly well 70 percent of companies that actually go through financial restructuring but only focus on the financial restructuring part rather than actually addressing the root causes in terms of strategy and operational deficiencies 70 of those companies after 18 months are back to square zero only that this time with even less room to maneuver so in this sense it's important that all of us always remember that when you go on a diet in this case restructuring with this diet you need to make fundamental changes to your lifestyle because if you don't fight the root causes well you are doomed to fail very fast and lastly we are about to see whether companies in the region actually use the breathing room that the government support mechanisms and programs during covet granted them or whether they just kicked down the can and we are about to witness a search of restructuring cases thank you and I'm really looking forward to the sessions today and to continue the dialogue with all of you thank you very much foreign