Challenge
What was at stake.
A borrower requested additional facilities against a deteriorating cash position. The lender needed an independent view—fast—before committing further capital or moving to enforcement.
Approach
What MFAS did.
MFAS delivered a time-boxed IBR: quality of earnings, cash runway, working-capital traps, management plan challenge, and a clear options matrix spanning refinance, informal workout, and formal insolvency routes.
Outcome
Where it landed.
The lender and board aligned on a conditional support path with milestones, rather than an open-ended facility increase or premature enforcement.
In depth
When cash is short, advocacy fills the vacuum. Management wanted headroom; the credit team wanted certainty. An IBR exists to replace both with evidence.
We tested forecast assumptions against bank data, aged debtors, stock reality, and near-term creditor behaviour. Several “one-off” items in the management case did not survive scrutiny.
The options paper did not recommend a single heroic outcome. It ranked paths by cash required, execution risk, and recoveries if the plan failed—so the credit committee could decide with eyes open.
Conditional support followed: tranche releases tied to debtor collections, SKU rationalisation, and weekly cash reporting—an outcome that protected the lender without collapsing a still-viable core.