The Client

SWH Group is a company focused on its core businesses of heat and green power generation. The group operates 27 district heating plants throughout Austria in medium-sized towns such as Obertauern, Bischofshofen, Amstetten and ensures the heat supply for about 2,000 households and industrial customers. In addition, the group is also active in green electricity generation (by direct feeding into the public grid).

The Project (Rent-a-CRO):

In the course of 2009, the SWH Group slid into a crisis that threatened its existence: constantly rising biomass prices contrasted with unchanged green power revenues or only slightly rising district heating revenues, and SWH was no longer able to meet its credit obligations as contractually agreed. Management Factory took up a management position in SWH in March 2009, and Management Factory also provided another remediation manager in the SWH Group for two years. From 2009 to 2011, a financing package was put together together with the financing banks and shareholders; in addition, most of the plants were sold to regional operators, which had more effective access to customers and to biomass suppliers due to their local connection; by the end of 2011, the SWH Group then consisted of only 2 plants, and the over-indebtedness of the company had been eliminated.