Taking Stock - Keeping afloat of the situation.

When the ship is sinking you need a good man to bail you out fast. In fact you want someone who is going to plug the leaks rather than make straight for the lifeboats.

TS has learned of such a lifesaver who has been rewarded in the most fitting way with a thank you gift that is just a little out of the ordinary.

Ian Schofield, corporate recovery partner with Pannell Kerr Forster’s Leeds office, was called in to help out Termunique Ltd, a manufacturer of hoses for the motor industry which, if it wasn’t actually sinking, was sitting pretty low in the water.

Schofield, reluctant to tell the hands to abandon ship, urged the plucky senior officers at the company to put the business into a Company Voluntary Arrangement. Having bought some time the old hulk is now trading at a profit.

So pleased were the crew they clubbed together and bought Schofield a life jacket because, as PKF’s publicity people gamely declare, he kept the company afloat!

‘It’s one of the more unusual gifts I’ve had but I shall hang it with pride on my office wall,’ said Schofield.

Let’s hope he never needs it himself.