MetroSouth Medical Center
Acquisition, Turnaround and Sale
In April 2008, MetroSouth Medical Center (formerly St Francis Hospital) in Blue Island, just south of Chicago was on the verge of financial ruin and faced imminent closure. Mr. Krule negotiated the acquisition and then designed, directed and executed the turnaround, serving as Chief Restructuring Officer. Under his direction, the hospital achieved an impressive turnaround of operations, restoring financial profitability, successfully recruiting physicians, and increasing the quality of healthcare for the surrounding community. During this period, the hospital converted to all private rooms, incubated and implemented a hospital-wide electronic medical record (EMR) system to further enhance patient care, and broadened its outreach through health clinics in eight surrounding communities. Over 1,200 employee jobs were saved. In the spring of 2012, Mr. Krule and his group successfully negotiated the sale of the restructured 330-bed hospital to Community Health Systems (CHS), one of the nation’s largest owners and operators of general acute care hospitals at that time. He generated a 180% IRR for his investors.
Industry-Leading Plumbing Supply and Distribution Company
Cash Flow and Inventory Management Consulting
A successful industry-leading plumbing supply and distribution company in the Northeast region was facing a cash flow crisis, at times having difficulty meeting payroll on a timely basis. In the face of this crisis, the CFO resigned. Lawrence and Jackson were hired by the CEO to identify and solve the consequential liquidity problems. Working with the Corporate Treasurer, and frequently acting in the CFO role, Lawrence and Jackson quickly created a comprehensive 13-week cash flow forecasting tool. They also instituted a reasonably simple methodology for weekly maintenance and updating of this forecast. Utilizing this tool then led to an understanding of underexploited sources of cash generation, which were addressed and plumbed to provide a more balanced and predictable positive cash flow for the Company. Furthermore the empowerment of this process also led Lawrence and Jackson to help the financial team to uncover 2 additional areas of increased margins, profitability and cash generation. First, a fully allocated costing methodology helped the company understand which areas were actually unprofitable on an incremental basis, and those activities were terminated. Secondly, excessive obsolete and slow-moving inventory was identified and highlighted, which lead to additional opportunities for new liquidity. Overall the Company’s cash management was stabilized and the Company was successfully sold a few years later.
Grupfoni
Restructuring, Financial and operation turnaround and merger
Upon invitation from its investors in Switzerland and Turkey, Mr. Erbengi took over the management as the CEO in 2012 following a two month evaluation period. The company was left with a P&L that was unable to support its business operations after a brief but non-sustainable growth period as well as out of control expenditures. As first order of business for restructuring, Mr. Erbengi completed a challenging round of layoff which resulted in 50% reduction of the staff. The HR reorganization was followed by a complete overhaul of Finance and Accounting departments, which were under regulatory and legal risk from the tax office as well as suppliers. After taking financial operations under control, IT, Creative, Sales and Marketing departments were also reorganized one by one to work in harmony. KPIs and relevant reporting streams were put in place in all aspects of operations and underperforming staff were immediately replaced. The changes improved employee motivation and dedication to the company. The restructuring led to financial profitability and positive cash flow in less than a year. In 2014, Mr. Erbengi guided the company through a successful merger with a larger e-commerce group.
food.Social
A sharing economy start up, from concept to global operations
Mr. Erbengi joined forces with a seasoned digital media entrepreneur in 2017 to build a global sharing economy platform in food industry. Food.social was born from the idea of bringing foodies, travelers, chefs, home cooks, restaurants, and food brands together in an ecosystem which makes it easier for them to engage with each other. As, CEO of food.social Mr. Erbengi oversees and directs all aspects of IT, finance, marketing, business development as well as fund raising efforts. An intense development and preparation period was followed by a launch in October 2018 in Milan-Italy. As of today, food.social is rapidly penetrating into different markets in Europe through direct operations or in the form of local strategic partnerships. After raising significant funds from investors from Switzerland, Italy and UK, within less than one year after its launch the company reached a valuation of €2.5M and getting ready to enter the US market.