Supports a Business Needs at Each Stage of Financial Distress
One of the most common mistakes I see is treating financial distress as a single event. Distress is a spectrum. A business can be solvent but strained, or sliding toward the point where it cannot meet its debts, or already insolvent but entirely capable of being saved.
Where a company sits on that spectrum changes everything about the kind of help that works, and the help that rescues a business at one stage can be useless, or even harmful, at another. This is exactly why GMM Consulting's services are built to meet a business wherever it actually is, rather than offering one fixed solution to very different problems.
Financial Distress is Not a Single Moment of Disaster
Irish law recognises two tests for whether a company is insolvent. The cash flow test (whether a company can pay its debts as they fall due) and the balance sheet test (whether its liabilities exceed its assets). A company can fail one, both, or neither, and the two do not always move together.
A profitable business can hit a cash flow wall. A business with strong sales can be balance sheet insolvent. The signs are rarely obvious from the inside, which is a theme I explored in an earlier article on the warning signs of business distress.
As a company faces distress, its legal position and its options both change. Early on, almost everything is still possible. Later, once a company is insolvent or likely to be, directors' duties shift, and they must begin to act in the interests of creditors rather than shareholders. Matching the right support to the right stage is not a nicety. It is the difference between having options and running out of them.
Business Triage and Independent Board Advisory for Businesses Under Early Pressure
At the first sign of strain, the priority is clarity. This is where Immediate Business Triage does its work: a rapid, objective assessment of the financial, operational and stakeholder position that cuts straight to the critical risks and the actions that steady the business fastest. When a company is still solvent but under pressure, a fast and honest diagnosis is often all that stands between a manageable problem and a serious one.
Independent Board Advisory brings experienced, impartial judgement into the boardroom before decisions calcify. At this stage, the value is not dramatic intervention. It is an outside perspective that asks for the real numbers, tests the optimistic assumptions, and helps the board see the position clearly while the widest range of choices is still open. Acting here, early and quietly, is almost always cheaper and less disruptive than acting later.
Strategic Decision Facilitation for Businesses Facing Insolvency
Insolvency is a stage that many distressed businesses fear, and many may enter without realising. This is where boards can freeze, but when decisive action matters most. Strategic Decision Facilitation is built to help the board weigh its options, make informed decisions, and align management, shareholders and lenders behind a single, clear plan.
The stakes here are personal as well as commercial. Directors who continue trading without a reasonable prospect of recovery can face restriction or disqualification, and Irish guidance is consistent that directors should take professional advice early, keep proper records, and avoid preferring one creditor over another. Part of managing this stage well is managing the lender relationship rather than retreating from it, which I wrote about in a piece on what lenders think when a business goes quiet. An experienced independent voice at the table makes those hard calls easier to face and safer to make.
Scenario Planning and Restructuring Support for Business Rescue and Recovery
Scenario Planning and Restructuring Support develops practical turnaround scenarios, testing the financial, operational and strategic alternatives to find the strongest path forward, and then supports the business in putting the chosen plan into action.
For many companies, that path can include one of Ireland's formal rescue frameworks. Examinership, under Part 10 of the Companies Act 2014, gives a company court protection for up to 150 days while it agrees a restructuring with creditors. The newer Small Company Administrative Rescue Process, or SCARP, offers a faster, lower-cost alternative for small and micro companies, with limited court involvement. As mentioned by Gibney Hogan, both share one essential condition: the company must have a reasonable prospect of survival.
GMM does not act as an examiner. Our role is to help the board understand which process is the right one, prepare properly, and steer the business through it with a credible plan, so that a rescue process is entered from a position of strength rather than desperation.
Why Should the Same Independent Adviser Guide Every Stage?
The reason we created these services together, rather than being offered in isolation, is that distress does not stay still. A business under early pressure can move into the zone of insolvency in a single bad quarter, and one that has stabilised can slip again. Having the same independent, experienced presence across all of these stages, through interim board representation, means the response evolves with the situation instead of restarting each time it changes. The person who triaged the problem is the same person facilitating the difficult decisions and shaping the recovery plan, and the same trusted voice the lenders have come to rely on throughout.
Our goal at GMM Consulting is always the same: to keep a viable business alive and moving forward. The most useful first step is an honest conversation about where you actually are and what options remain open. That conversation is always confidential, and always without obligation.
This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. Every situation is different, and directors should seek professional advice specific to their circumstances.
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