August 2026: Last October we were retained by a Canadian company dealing with regulatory and financial distress at the same time. The regulatory issue eliminated its ability to operate. The financial position could not support the business as it stood.

Working with management, the company filed for protection under the CCAA. Sinclair Range took on the Chief Restructuring Officer role. Another partner of the firm provided debtor-in-possession financing to fund the company through the process. The lender had no prior connection to the company — no existing loans, no history with the situation. It came to the deal only through Sinclair Range. That is unusual in DIP financing: most rescue loans come from a lender already in the file, protecting an existing position. This was new money, invested on the strength of the information and the structure.

The process took ten months. It was long and difficult — weekly cash management, court attendances, creditor negotiations, lots of in-fighting and a regulatory file that had to be resolved in parallel with the insolvency, all while a court-supervised sale process ran.

In the end, the business resolved its regulatory problems and was sold out of the process as a going concern, in a sale that maximized proceeds to stakeholders. Yesterday, our lending partner was repaid in full — principal, fees, and interest.

Two observations from the file.

For business owners: however bad it looks, there is usually a way out. What it takes is expert advice, turnaround leadership, and access to capital. The leadership point deserves a word. A crisis is a different job. You can be a fantastic CEO — a great operator, a great growth leader — and still fail in a distress situation, because crisis management is its own skill. Very few management teams can run the business, make money, and handle the crisis at the same time. That is what a Chief Restructuring Officer is: a turnaround leader who takes on the crisis so management can keep running the company. With advice, leadership, and capital in place, a company in distress can solve its problems and come out the other side. That is what happened here.

For lenders: distress does not equal risk — it is opportunity. There are safe, secured, high-return deals available in these situations for lenders who have good information from the borrower. But these deals rarely arrive on a lender’s desk in a form that can be done. They have to be manufactured — uniquely and creatively built, term by term, to give the business what it needs to survive while fully protecting the lender. That is the difference. Through a firm like Sinclair Range, a lender does not wait for a doable deal to show up: it creates its own deal and pitches it to the borrower. That is how this loan was built, and it was repaid in full.

You will not find names here. Our clients’ situations are their business, in good outcomes and bad – even if it’s already public information. That is how we would handle yours.

Sinclair Range advises companies in transition — restructuring, interim management and CRO roles, and arranging and managing financing, including bridge and DIP facilities.

The first conversation is confidential: ssinclair@sinclairrange.com.