The Position You Keep Avoiding

Every balance sheet has them.

The investment that's been illiquid for years. The subsidiary nobody talks about. The credit you wrote a check for in 2019 that the borrower still owes you. The partnership agreement you signed without reading the dispute clause. The vehicle you put $2 million into and the GP stopped sending statements.

Most owners do one of two things.

They ignore it — because picking the position up again requires admitting it didn't work out, and there's always something newer and shinier to look at.

Or they pay a law firm to write a letter, get a $40,000 invoice and an inconclusive memo, and quietly close the file.

There's a third option.

What "isn't working" actually means

The phrase covers a lot of ground. The position might be impaired. It might be performing but illiquid. It might be paying, but to the wrong party. It might be governed by an agreement that nobody can find. It might be technically fine but tying up capital you'd rather have free for something else.

Before you spend money trying to fix it, you need to know which one of those it is. That single distinction usually determines whether the answer is a workout, a restructuring, a sale, a write-down, or doing nothing.

We start most engagements with this question: what is the position, really, and what is the realistic outcome under each available path?

If "do nothing" is the right answer, we tell you and we don't bill for the rest of the work that wasn't needed.

Who to call

There's no good name for what we do.

What it takes to move a position like this is one experienced credit/structuring person looking at your situation, telling you what they would do, and staying with the work until the answer is delivered. The deliverable is judgement and continuity. The engagement shape — fee, contingency, success share, assignment into a vehicle we manage — follows the situation.

That's the gap we fill.

A bad investment that's still recoverable. A subsidiary that needs to be merged, sold, or wound down. An agreement someone wrote in 2017 that's now creating an unwanted obligation. A vehicle that has assets but no functioning manager. A claim that's been ignored long enough that the counterparty thinks they got away with it.

Pick the one that's been on your mind for a year. That's the one to call about.

How we work

Two-step engagement on most of these.

A short, fixed-fee assessment first. We look at the position, the docs, the cap stack, the counterparty's posture. You get a one-page view of what we think it is and what we think you can do. That's deliverable in days, not weeks. No retainer for follow-on work attached.

If you want us to run the resolution after that, we propose a structure that lines up with the outcome — flat fee, success share, contingency, whatever fits the situation. If you want to take our assessment and do something else with it, that's fine too.

The engagement shape follows the situation. Sometimes you hold the position and we run the recovery for a fee plus a share. Sometimes the cleaner answer is to assign it into a vehicle we manage and we work it out as principal. We propose what fits.

The honest floor

Some positions can't be recovered. Some agreements can't be unwound at acceptable cost. Some subsidiaries are worth what their last buyer offered, not what you remember paying.

What we can do is tell you that, before you spend another year hoping otherwise — and identify the small number of positions on your balance sheet that are worth the work.