Red Hawk 2009 Review Highlights

Please note that Red Hawk Associates, my consulting firm, is a firm of hands on restructuring ("keeping the good parts of a business and leaving behind the bad") and performance improvement professionals. We realize that our success is solely dependent on that of our Clients and we sincerely thank them for their efforts in the last year and for their confidence in us. Some highlights of our firm's work in 2009;

David Brown led two significant restructurings and turnarounds during the year. One turnaround was of a world leading rubber products manufacturer. EBITDA improved from annualized negative 20% to above annualized positive 10% within 6 months. Red Hawk compromised unsecured debt over 6 years with no interest.

The second turnaround continues with a leading manufacturer with multiple plants. The economy damaged this company drastically resulting in a drop of sales of 50%. Sales are rebounding and costs have been cut substantially. The prognosis is good but creditors need to support the turnaroud and be patient.

David also spent considerable time in '09 on two buy-side engagements for private equity firms searching for value investment opportunities in the lower/middle market. Those engagements are ongoing in 2010.

Ron Caporossi led two major engagements in '09 including a very successful performance improvement effort using Six Sigma techniques for a large publicly traded polymer manufacturer. The project focused on analyzing the economic value of certain customers, plants and product lines and providing recommendations to senior management. The second project is ongoing and involves essentially performing as a non-judicial receiver on behalf of a large regional bank.

Brad Eldridge, Advisory Director, led numerous valuations in '09 including of a large casino.

Sam Ahmad, Director, worked with David on the turnaround of the rubber products manufacturer. Sam played a critical role in improving the recipe and process to reduce costs and helped train management and operators to bring the process into control. He spent much of the remainder of the year in China, helping his Client, a specialty chemical maker, market and sell product to Chinese tire manufacturers. Partly as a result of Sam's efforts, China is now the world's largest producer of tires and coincidentally, purchased 30% more cars in '09 than did the US.

William Sinn, Advisory Director, also spent most of the year in or traveling to/from China while representing American companies developing markets there for their products.

Again, thank you to our Clients and to our referral sources.