90-Day Business Revival Plan

Press release

22 March 2011

90-Day Business Revival Plan

Grant Thornton New Zealand has banded with four other leading business and financial services firms to offer, free of charge, a 90-day business revival plan to assist Grant Thornton’s clients in Christchurch

Grant Thornton New Zealand (accounting), Westpac (banking), Duncan and Cotterill (legal), LSI (operations advisory) and Grant Thornton Risk Management (insurance), will work together to offer individual businesses a recovery plan.

At this stage the 90-day business revival plan is being piloted to Grant Thornton New Zealand Christchurch clients, but it is hoped that it can be offered more widely in the near future.

Businesses requiring assistance should phone the 4 BusRevival toll free number 0508 428 773.

Wayne Jackson, CEO of Grant Thornton New Zealand, said that his firm had been involved in a similar recovery programme to help Queensland firms after their recent floods.

“Small to medium sized business are vital to the New Zealand economy and are the core of all of our Christchurch businesses. We believe that immediate assistance to firms under pressure from the earthquake is vital to help the City get back on its feet. Clients are encouraged to include other existing advisers in the planning process to ensure that the recovery plan can be quickly put into action.

“We don’t see it as necessarily ‘one hat fits all programme.’ All businesses are different and each plan will be prepared to suit the particular business,” he said

The key steps needed to get a business back on its feet include:

• Business advice and planning as well as assistance with a budget and cash flow plan to guide the business over the short -term

• A summary of key legal issues to consider with a suggested plan to deal with these issues

• Operational advice to on how to manage your plant and operations where you have lost management controls, process control, and operational systems.

• Advice on options available for funding packages available to provide short-term finance

• Advice on how to manage your insurance claims.

How it works

Once registered, one of the local Grant Thornton advisory team will contact the business and then either by phone, email or with a face-to-face meeting will gather information about the immediate business planning needs.

A team of advisers, handpicked to meet the firm’s unique requirements will develop the free 90-day business plan.

Firms participating

Duncan Cotterill

Duncan Cotterill is one of New Zealand's leading commercial law firms. They have five offices and over 100 lawyers throughout New Zealand including Canterbury and also in Sydney

Grant Thornton New Zealand

Grant Thornton New Zealand is a national firm with three offices including Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. With the majority of New Zealand businesses being owner managed, Grant Thornton has dedicated its resources to providing accounting and business advisory services to these businesses.

Linking Strategy to Implementation

LSI is a company that facilitates organisational improvement by working hands on with a client’s staff to implement structured processes or systems to give you optimum control over the key areas of your business.

Westpac

Since 1861, Westpac has been helping Kiwis find the right financial solutions to suit their needs. Beginning life as The Bank of New South Wales, they changed our name to Westpac in 1982. Westpac New Zealand Limited is the country’s largest full service banks with

• over 1.2 million customers

• around 200 branches and 500 ATM’s nationwide

• around 900,000 registered users of our Online Banking service - performing 3 million transactions online (June 2009)

• over 5,500 staff.

Westpac provides a full range of banking and financial services for personal, business and agribusiness banking as well as being the banker of the New Zealand Government.

ENDS

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