The JC Journey – Doing things differently

“We just need someone internally to take control of the LER program” – sound familiar? This was THE soundbite that planted the seed and got us thinking about what clients REALLY need when embarking on large-scale restructuring initiatives such as legal entity rationalisation (“LER”). Of course, it was not the first time clients had said this but it was a penny drop moment that led to the formation of JC Consulting.

Cameron and James were working for a Big 4 accounting firm at the time managing LER projects. One of those projects was for a global pharmaceutical company where the Head of International Tax made the aforementioned statement. She had been tasked with overseeing the Group’s LER ambitions, on top of her day job and alongside supporting several other corporate projects as the Tax workstream lead. She pretty much had the underside of one corner of her desk available to deliver LER.

Three months into the project, she had seen for herself the inherent challenges that LER introduces, recognising it is not “Business As Usual” but requires specific restructuring expertise as well as agile project management to successfully deliver it.

We describe LER as “a mile wide and an inch deep”. It is wide reaching. It touches all functions within an organisation, some with only a passing reference check; others with a far greater impact (tax, finance, legal, CoSec).

LER is also highly technical. It needs a skilled practitioner to drive it, coordinate the actions, corral the team members, manage people and processes, organise, direct and ultimately instil a passion within the project team to ensure early success leads to onward momentum.

There is minimal margin for error when delivering LER. If you are winding something down to nothing, you must have precision, there is no place for estimates. For example, you must confirm if there is a legal agreement somewhere, not assume there isn’t. You need to have a fully reconciled fixed asset base, not assume that just because a balance is showing as “nil” in a ledger, that means the asset does not exist somewhere. The devil is very much in the detail – and normally off-balance sheet too.

With the restructuring advisory AND project delivery mantra in our ears and very much at the forefront of our minds, we set out on the JC journey with an objective to do things differently. Six years on, we have a team that has been specifically curated to deliver LER and associated restructuring projects for our clients.

We achieve excellent results by being a team with wide-ranging, relevant skill sets, who take the time to really get to know the client, the project team and how things are done internally. We know LER at a deep functional level and bring a clear focus on the delivery of the project generating real value, at an extremely competitive price point and with no nasty surprises.

We often embed ourselves in our clients’ teams to take on the managed wind-down burden, providing project management, finance and operational support and coordinating tax and legal input through our extensive global network as a “one-stop-shop” solution to our clients.