Brian Horn

Brian focuses on driving operating and financial performance for clients facing complex and challenging situations, acting in an advisory or management capacity, and has held chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and chief restructuring officer positions.

He has extensive international experience having led turnaround and restructuring engagements in the UK, Europe, North America, and Africa. He has worked across a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, aviation, energy, petro-chemicals, retail, consumer products, business services, construction, engineering, transport, real estate, and media and telecoms.

Prior to joining Ankura, Brian was a partner at a Big 4 firm and previously held senior roles with two leading, global turnaround and restructuring consultancies.
Prior to focusing on an advisory career, he held senior management roles with Diageo plc and IWG plc in the real estate sector.

Brian’s professional experience includes:

Served as interim CFO to the $600 million Maintenance Repair & Overhaul (MRO) division of a PE backed, global helicopter service provider. Led the restructuring of MRO production capacity to increase EBITDA by $20 million and implemented a liquidity management system for the wider Group, generating $40 million of additional cash.

Advised a global consumer-lighting group to refine its global restructuring strategy. Eliminated $300 million of restructuring costs and preserved 4,500 roles through a successful asset disposal program and subsequently, led the exit of the business from the Asia Pacific and Latin America regions, generating $95 million of liquidity in the process.

Advised the board of a South African based, global retailer facing acute financial distress resulting from a suspected $10.7 billion fraud. Developed a cash flow forecasting system covering 90 operating companies which provided the Group with visibility over its liquidity position, and subsequently assisted management to position its financial resources to most effectively serve the Group’s operations through its ultimate financial restructuring.

Advised the board of a PE backed, global telecoms provider to develop an accelerated cost base rationalization program. This resulted in the elimination of $50 million in costs through the redesign of the commercial organization structure and the overhaul of support function expenditures.

Following and operating review of a PE backed, Nordics transportation operator, led the development of a transformation program across its pricing, organization structure, cost base, and IT platform, leading to EBITDA improvements of $15 million.

Served as interim CEO for one of Europe’s premier, private members golf clubs which comprised of two championship golf courses, a luxury hotel and two restaurants. Led the turnaround of the business, returning it to profitability, and redeveloped its commercial strategy which included securing planning permission to expand hotel capacity by 200% and obtaining planning approval for the creation of a third golf course.

Advised the board of a global engineering group facing the multiple challenges of severely underperforming divisions, a hostile takeover bid, and an unfunded $260 million debt maturity. Developed a restructuring plan for the business based on the disposal of its North American division and refinancing of its debt facilities. The successful restructuring removed the takeover threat and returned the business to growth.

Acted as restructuring advisor to the board of a multi-site Ukrainian brewer. Developed an operational restructuring plan to optimize the manufacturing footprint and rationalize the product range: this improved the business performance in advance of representing the company in negotiations with a syndicate of international lenders