Wall Street English: successful turnaround and preservation of the company’s value

SO-MG Partners provided the group with support for its recovery procedure and continues to work alongside its client to accelerate exit from the recovery plan.

A leading French player in the market for distance learning of English, in 2015 the Wall Street English Group experienced difficulties following a change in legislation. It tried unsuccessfully to renegotiate its bank debt and was obliged to initiate a recovery procedure which proved beneficial for the group by allowing it to:

• Reschedule its debt over a longer period; and
• Dispose of the necessary time and cash to implement several measures of performance improvement.

The group embarked on a series of measures:

• Adaptation of its business model to the new legislative environment;
• Implementation of an ERP system providing real-time visibility over billings and profitability for each training centre;
• Improvement of each training centre’s contribution via better organisation and greater commercial impetus;
• Identification of the sources of losses and rationalisation of the organisation.

Today, management’s efforts are concentrated on raising loan finance, repaying creditors and exiting the recovery plan. The company’s value has been restored and its access to finance has become easier.