CEO, CRO, and Turnaround & Restructuring
The Situation & Approach
An Italian restaurant brand inspired by Italian country cuisine, based in Denver, Colorado, with 85 Italian casual dining restaurants in 22 states, plus 20 franchise locations in the U.S. and 7 other countries was facing falling sales, increasing costs, and legacy liabilities. This led to a performance decline and negative $12M in EBITDA based on $230M in revenues prior to a Chapter 11 filing. Mackinac Partners (acquired by Accordion in 2021) was engaged as interim CEO and CRO to help strategically turn around the brand and operations while concurrently working through a Chapter 11 reorganization.
Services
Interim CEO & CRO
Liquidity Management
Turnaround & Restructuring
The Execution
- Developed a turnaround plan focused on a combination of initiatives across sales and marketing, cost management (unit level and G&A), real estate, team development and retention, and establishing controls and processes, to return the company to EBITDA positive for 2018.
- Turned around the declining trend in same store sales, realizing consistent improvement and reaching the first ever positive YOY growth under current ownership in March 2018.
- Supported an accelerated bankruptcy process over just four months, which enabled the aggressive renegotiation of leases and vendor contacts for annualized P&L savings of $2.3MM.
- Managed the preparation and execution of operations through the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding in which the Company managed to a DIP cash flow forecast and secured new financing of $13.5MM to fund both the restructuring costs and the operational turnaround.
- Led the development and system-wide rollout of new labor forecasting and food and beverage costing systems to realize P&L savings of over $5MM annually.
- Rationalized the geographical footprint and closed over 40 negative carry units to yield $5MM of incremental EBITDA annually.
The Results
As interim CEO and CRO, our team helped to strategically turn around the brand and operations while concurrently working through a Chapter 11 reorganization – including new sales-oriented initiatives, the closing of negative carry units, renegotiated leases and vendor contracts, and securing $13.5MM in new capital to fund restructuring efforts and invest directly in the Company.