How a Liverpool animal pharma plant was saved

And an insiders account of how the moving parts of a complex administration work

Hello Rainmakers,

Some people think of turnaround and recovery as the grubby little brother of the more glamorous M&A world, but there are increasingly blurred boundaries between the disciplines and moves by the big players to step into M&A.

This week we’ve got some insights into the high wire act of saving an animal pharma plant in Liverpool, the factory where penicillin was first mass produced during the Second World War.

It’s got some intriguing subplots and a foretaste of some of the political deals that may have been struck to get the deal done. But also some really useful lessons in how to run a successful rescue operation from Oliver Wright of FTI, who did just that.

Enjoy.

Sometimes when a business hits the hard reality of an administration there’s a coming together of financial stakeholders, customers, staff, government and the professional advisers tasked with getting a deal done.

One such business was TriRx Speke, a company that traces its roots back to a business that made penicillin during the Second World War.