Should we Allow Phoenix'ing a Company?

It seems a weird thing when accountants suggest a course of action that deliberately puts a company into administration in order to be bought by someone else free of any old accountability but that's what 'Phoenix'ing' is all about. And accountants seem to love it.

Blacks is the latest firm to go into administration for a very short period so that the company can be bought free of creditors snapping at their backs. In this case, it is Dragon's Den Peter Jones who appears to be the buyer after Mike Ashley of Sports Direct, the biggest shareholder, refused to rescue the company.

I have seen it argued that by doing this Blacks saves the employees, around 3,500 of them, from the vagaries of going bust and the wrath of the creditors who will haggle over the assets left to pay outstanding bills. However, the Phoenix process avoids this by declaring the company safe from creditors then allowing the good assets to be bought cheaply by a new buyer and the debts left behind and so the new owner gets the good bits while the creditors and shareholders get nothing but losses. Nice.

Of course, in saving the workers a good thing has been done, argue the accountants. However, it seems they have lost their capacity to add up as debts remain and the creditors don't get paid and shareholders lose their capital. Some may not shed a tear for investors as they should know the risk but all companies need creditors and if they have to write off bad debts then they suffer the consequences of Blacks' demise. It is the creditors who have to lose the money, lay off staff or curb their plans etc. They may get some insurance back but there are always losses.

And of course, this ensures that banks and insurers get more prudent and so there is less insurance cover and creditors lend less after getting stung. The argument is that this is better than Blacks going out of business as it could not be sold as a going concern.

So who is to blame here? Well the survivors are generally the same managers and directors who have brought the company to its knees as they are the magicians who use the Phoenix system. The workers will inevitably suffer as there will have to be severe restraints put on the business by the new owner to stem the losses. The accountants, meanwhile, get fat fees for their wizardry.

There is something cheap and nasty about the whole thing. There is something laissez faire about the management cavalier use of it. There is something distinctly odd about accountants using it. There is something very unfair about it for creditors. There is something downright shameful for the directors who leap from one boat to another freeing themselves of the responsibility of failure.

But the new owner won't care about that. The assets are bought for a song and it's back in business. I wonder, in the world of 'zero sum accounting' that governs all such matters whether the spread of losses make this any the less traumatic in the long run or is this just a convenient way for directors to get away with daylight robbery?

Be A Dragon - Get An Ego

If you want a darn good read about those annoying people who have started 'building their own brand', then flip to Jane Simms' article in this month's Director Magazine from the IOD.

I am sure we have all experienced the same as she had done - attending some self-help or business guru's online or live seminar when they start off by spouting on about how many books they have written, what companies they have created and sold, how much their life is better than ours, yada, yada, yada.

I have read many of Thomas Power's (co-founder of www.ecademy.com with his wife, Penny) articles on how the web has gone through phases and is not at the 'Follow me' stage which is represented at the nth degree by www.twitter.com and I have to say that I am not convinced. It all reminds me of those clever adverts you would find at the back of newspapers which tell you how to become a millionaire for a small sum. If you reply to them and pay the money, allegedly you would get a book detailing how to take out an advert in a newspaper saying how you can make someone a millionaire for a small sum - hey presto you become a millionaire and so does the next person ad nauseum.

Tony Blair is at it although 10 years in power, some dodgy dealings and a new job he never turns up to might be seen as a drawbacks, but he's earning nicely thank you at £250k for 90 minute speeches, £4m+ advances for his memoirs, and around £4m per annum for advisory positions at financial institutions. Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and many more have made absolute fortunes out of our ability to get sucked into the promise of a fantastic career, personal fulfilment and large bank balance.

Big Ego, Big Career?

But all this presupposes we have the ego to go do it. Watching the new series of The Apprentice for just a few seconds and it reminded me of all that it is bad in management - this self-belief and lack of depth which seems to be so lauded by Alan Sugar and his gurus. Former Apprentice contestant, Ruth Badger, got her own TV Show doing a 'John Harvey Jones - Troubleshooter' and going in to fix companies essentially off the back of scowling when other people were talking to make them look small or retarded. Character assassination by sarcasm and facial expressions tend to go only so far in business and mercifully I have not seen any new series of such tosh. The late Harvey Jones, meanwhile, made his name building ICI.

Jane Simms points out that Rachel Elnaugh on Dragons' Den has one claim to fame which is starting and busting the company known as 'Red Letter Days' - great concept but poor execution. Yet she has risen from the ashes with a personal brand of some kind of entrepreneurial guru. The difference between many with failed businesses and her is sheer ego, yet why would a failure like Red Letter Days be of particularly good value to others as it was so badly executed?

Ah well, that's for you to find out on one of her smashing 'Entrepreneur Courses'.

There are some who do match ego with success. Simms cites Gordon Ramsay and Richard Branson and they are good examples of well manufactured brands with real substance. Last weekend, Branson flung himself, albeit tentatively by his standards, behind the phoenix-like formed new F1 Team, Brawn. The result was a spectacular PR coup for the master PR man - not only did Team Brawn dominate qualifying to get positions 1 and 2 on the grid but they also occupied the same positions at the race finish - in the team's very first race, and with a British driver at the front. Branson has a real knack of spotting an opportunity and laying out some risk. Team Brawn was hastily put together when Honda pulled out of F1 due to the recession - how they could have done with Branson's nose for an opportunity and stuck it out.

Meanwhile, Peter Jones of Dragons' Den has won a Government contract to set up an Entrepreneur's academy ahead of many an eminent person and team who know plenty about how to teach the skills of business, entrepreneurship and success. He is a man who has made a lot of money over time and has built a fantastic personal brand of late. This is a big risk for him to take as now he has to prove beyond the puerile facial expressions on the show and fats cars that he has more then one success inside him. It will be interesting to see the result.

Personal Branding And Success

It is certainly wise to build something of a personal brand. We all do it - it's the ability of a friend or colleague to actually say what they think we are about if asked. Our brand is the mark we leave on people. You can build that up more by using clever tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, blogs, and having the front to build a business around yourself. The danger always is that there needs to be some level of substance behind it all as no one likes paying for something that does not add value.

So, do as Jane Simms recommends, brand yourself by all means but make sure there is something that underpins it.