Baldwin Bell Green analysed the top 500 US companies from 1955 to 2012, reviewing their survival rates in 20-year blocks of time. The rate of  mortality was 41% of all companies in the top 500 in the US 20-year period from 1955 to 1975. This rose to some 75% in the seventeen years between 1995 and 2012. This rapid rise in company collapse was blamed on their failure to diversify and change, even though they will have undergone some form of reorganisation in this time. It may be that reorganisations need to be thorough and comprehensive to offer long-term protection.

Forbes conducted similar research and found that only one of the top 100 companies in 1917 was still in the top 100 in 2013, although another 21 were still trading. The one company left in the top 100, GE, has undergone multiple reorganisations over the years.

Conducting a reorganisation is not going to be a guarantee to save a moribund company, but failing to ever look at how the company performs and delivers its products and services could result in its demise. Companies offering niche products may have more immunity from the need for diversification, but every company undergoes change at some point in its life and a few will be undergoing restructuring on an almost continual basis.

Boston Consulting Group conducted a rigorous review of required factors which almost guaranteed reorganisation efforts – these are on page 8.

We hope that the articles in this report might help with your reorganisation – best of luck!

Please email business@icaew.com if you have any thoughts about this or other reports.