CFO & CEO Crisis Advisory · Global Deployment

Another loan won't fix
a broken model.

A crisis rarely is what it looks like on the surface. We start with the diagnostic — and sometimes what we find is a financial fix. Sometimes it opens a more important conversation about the model itself.

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Crises do not announce themselves. They accumulate. June 2026: Strait still closed · ceasefire holds — talks stall · Brent ~$95, +44% year-on-year · JPMorgan completes UAE EM exit this month · the cost of freight and the cost of debt are both moving.

5d
Cash & EBITDA Diagnostic
52
P&L & Balance Sheet Control Points
<4h
CFO Hot Support Response
6w
Financial Control Rebuild
Big4PM senior advisory principals — Deloitte McKinsey KPMG Eight Advisory
Our Story

A track record built
before the crisis hit.

Big4PM was already operating — advising on financial structuring, balance sheet control and cross-border governance for luxury, retail, pharma and industrial groups across Europe and the GCC — when the disruption of February 2026 changed the nature of the work.

"Our clients adapt to every market shift. We did the same — crossing our competencies in financial control, deal advisory and operational restructuring to give them the best of each discipline in a single engagement."

We start with the diagnostic. We tell you what we find — clearly, without softening it. If the situation calls for more, we go further together. Longer engagements are earned, not assumed.

The Crisis Context

Day 90.
The moment most CFOs are not ready for.

28 Feb 2026

Armed conflict escalates in the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint through which 20% of global oil and a third of GCC trade transits — is effectively closed to commercial shipping. Cape of Good Hope rerouting adds 10 to 14 days and 20 to 35% to landed cost. Brent spikes. Energy-linked input costs follow within weeks.

March 2026

GCC importers and European manufacturers activate contingency protocols. Buffer stocks deployed. Force majeure invoked with suppliers. Banks grant 30-day covenant waivers. Oil above $95 — freight rates locked in at peak. Input cost inflation begins embedding in supplier contracts. The clock starts.

Mid-April 2026

A ceasefire is announced. The financial press reports stabilisation. Most CFOs exhale. The Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz remain closed. The Cape route stays congested. Oil stays elevated — structural inflation is now embedded in logistics contracts, energy bills and supplier pricing. The cash position keeps deteriorating — quietly.

May 2026 — Day 90 ⚠

Buffer stocks exhausted. Force majeure clauses expiring — supplier disputes begin. Lender waivers up for renewal. Brent up 34% since February: margin compression is structural, not cyclical. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Our estimate: 1 in 3 mid-market companies with corridor exposure will need to refinance within 18 months. Most do not know it yet.

"A protracted conflict does not just disrupt logistics. It restructures costs permanently — freight, energy, supplier contracts, currency hedges. The companies that navigate it are not those with the best forecasts. They are those who saw their real cash position clearly, early enough to act."

Conflicts of this nature last 6 to 24 months and restructure costs permanently. We estimate that 1 in 3 mid-market companies with corridor exposure will need external financing within 18 months. The question is not whether — it is whether your cash position is clear enough to negotiate from strength, or whether the bank sees it before you do.

⚠We find the number your board has not seen yet.
June 2026

Strait of Hormuz still closed. Ceasefire holds — talks stall. Brent ~$95, +44% year-on-year. JPMorgan completes UAE EM exit this month. Two signals at once: one structural risk, one structural maturation.

Who We Serve

Mid-market €50M–€500M.
Three moments of need.

⚡

CFO in acute crisis

Revenue disrupted. Cash runway shrinking. Board and lenders asking questions your team cannot answer in 48 hours. Covenant breach imminent.

  • Net debt / EBITDA covenant under pressure
  • Free cash flow negative 2+ months
  • Bank committee or refinancing in <3 months
📊

CEO with a control gap

Management accounts don't match statutory accounts. EBITDA reported to the board diverges from auditor view. No reliable 13-week cash visibility.

  • IFRS 15 / IFRS 16 gaps in the close
  • P&L vs. budget variance unexplained
  • Auditors raising going concern flags
🛡

CFO building resilience

Not yet in crisis — but exposed. Logistics-dependent, multi-geography, wanting to stress-test EBITDA and working capital before the next disruption.

  • Working capital cycles exposed to corridors
  • No real-time landed cost visibility
  • Supply chain finance instruments unused
Our Products

Three instruments.
One mandate: control.

We start with a diagnostic — clear, fast, and built around your actual numbers. What is compressing your margin. Where the cash is going. What the structure is hiding. From there, the path forward is something we build together. No catalogue. Every engagement starts with the truth about your situation.

MarginIQ — CFO EBITDA and cash diagnostic crisis advisory
Crisis Continuity & Decision Diagnostic

MarginIQ

Will you reach Day 150? MarginIQ answers that in 10 days. Cash runway model day-by-day. Covenant position under 3 scenarios. SKU coverage by corridor. Force majeure expiry calendar. Lender communication package drafted and ready. And on Day 11 — the War Room: a Trigger List of 15 to 25 pre-agreed decisions with named decision holders, built to function for 6 to 18 months.

  • Survival Report in 2 days — cash runway, covenants, lender pack ready
  • Full MarginIQ: 10 days · 4 modules · War Room operational on Day 11
  • 30-day support · present for the first lender call · first trigger that fires
  • Bundle with ControlIQ: −20%
Run the diagnostic →
ControlIQ — IFRS financial control P&L reconciliation advisory
Financial Control & Reconciliation

ControlIQ

52 control points. 6 weeks. The gap between management accounts and statutory accounts — closed before the auditor finds it. Rolling 13-week cash forecast replacing the annual budget. Working capital visibility by entity. IFRS-compliant, AI layer on your own data.

  • 52 control points — P&L · cash · IFRS 15/16 · logistics · hidden risks
  • IFRS 15 · IFRS 16 · reconciliation templates
  • Margin Reality Report — every gap quantified and board-ready
  • 13-week rolling forecast replacing the annual budget · Trigger List
Run the diagnostic →
LandedIQ — real-time landed cost margin intelligence CFO SaaS
Real-Time Margin Intelligence · SaaS

LandedIQ

Real-time landed cost by SKU, corridor and Incoterm. Tariff alerts within 30 minutes of official publication. Forwarder invoice vs market rate — dispute-ready variance report in 4 hours. Operational Confidence Score per route: Execute / Monitor / Avoid. The technology layer that feeds directly into the ControlIQ Trigger List and the MarginIQ War Room. Live at landed-iq.com — no installation, operational in 15 minutes.

  • Tariff alerts within 30 min · GCC FTAs · CBAM 2026 · Section 232
  • Landed cost by Incoterm (EXW to DDP) · Cape vs Hormuz real-time
  • Forwarder bridge · dispute-ready variance report in 4 hours
  • OCS Score per route · feeds MarginIQ War Room · ControlIQ Trigger List
Open LandedIQ
Beyond the Crisis

Crisis is the entry point.
Transformation is the work.

The diagnostic tells you where you are. That is where we start — and where most engagements begin. But organisations that come through a disruption stronger are not those who simply stabilised. They used the moment to rebuild the financial architecture that should have been there before.

When the diagnostic is done and the trust is established, some clients ask us to stay. To help restructure the financial control system, redesign the reporting to the board, rebuild the relationship with lenders — and build the permanent monitoring that means the next shock does not become the next crisis.

Phase 1 — Entry
The Diagnostic

MarginIQ · ControlIQ · LandedIQ. We find the number your board has not seen yet. Fast, senior, and with no assumptions about what comes next.

Phase 2 — If earned
Structuring & Rebuilding

Financial control architecture. Board reporting redesign. Lender relationship management. Permanent monitoring via LandedIQ and ControlIQ. Longer engagements, built on the trust the diagnostic created.

Always on
Continuous Intelligence

LandedIQ running in the background. The next tariff change, corridor disruption, or freight spike — your team sees it before it hits the P&L. Disruption becomes a signal, not a surprise.

What most advisors won't tell you

Another loan won't fix a broken model.

When cash runs short, the instinct is always the same: find new financing. Negotiate a bridge. Buy time. But in most of the situations we diagnose, the cash problem is a symptom — not the disease.

Refinancing a broken business model gives it more runway to fail. The organisation survives another quarter — then arrives at the same wall, now with more debt and less credibility with its lenders.

What they sell you
A bridge loan. A refinancing package. More time.
What we ask first
Is this a liquidity crisis — or a business model crisis?
What changes when you know the answer
Everything. The advice, the timeline, the negotiation, the outcome.

"Stopping the bleeding is not always about cutting costs. Sometimes it means having the courage to look at what's generating the wound."

— Noria Achi · Big4PM
Run the War Room Diagnostic Free · 10 minutes · The diagnosis before the advice.
Big4PM senior methodology CFO advisory
Our Commitments

Diagnostic first.

01
No Data, No Fee

If your data quality cannot support a reliable diagnostic, we say so — before we start, and without charging. A diagnostic built on bad data is not a diagnostic.

02
Named senior from day one

The diagnostic is always senior-led. Delivery scales — remote or on-site, with SaaS tools that work without us in the room.

03
48-hour exit clause

If we are not delivering, you exit in 48 hours. No penalty. No questions. We earn your confidence every week — not on signature.

04
50% J+30 · 50% J+60

Two equal instalments. No advance, no interest. You pay as the situation stabilises. Our exposure ends when yours does.

⬡
Built to scale — SaaS + remote diagnostics

MarginIQ, ControlIQ, LandedIQ, EAC — each tool delivers value between engagements. A client in Dubai, Paris or São Paulo runs their own diagnostic before we meet. The model transmits: clients leave with tools and methodology that work without us.

The Team

Three principals.
Remote or on-site. Built to scale.

A cross-disciplinary leadership team — 20 to 25 years of experience each, grounded in operational reality — built to give you the clearest possible view of your situation.

Partners — ready to scale
Noria Achi
Founder & Managing Director

Deloitte Advisory — Financial Operations · Eight Advisory — Capital Markets & Deal Accounting

Karim Bacha
Partner — Retail & Operations

Retail & luxury operations — Europe · GCC · Clients include Hermès and Kering

Matthew Riche
Partner — Strategy & Transformation

McKinsey · KPMG · EY — Financial restructuring · Lender management · Board advisory

Big4PM advisory team Dubai
Field Intelligence

Financial Crisis Fortress.
The CFO field series.

Six operational books written by Matthew Riche for CFOs and CEOs of mid-market companies between €50M and €500M. Not theory — the exact methodology we deploy: cash runway models, covenant dashboards, EBITDA diagnostic frameworks, IFRS reconciliation templates, P&L stress tests, and working capital restructuring. Available independently from our advisory engagements.

#1

Cash or Die

Survival Report · Bank Committee in 48h

Cash runway model, covenant calculations, 25 immediate cash actions ranked by execution speed, bank committee preparation. Excel Toolkit included.

Get on Gumroad
#2

The War Room

Crisis Governance · Board Management

The Trigger List, crisis governance protocols, the neuroscience of why good leaders make bad decisions under EBITDA pressure, board management.

Get on Gumroad
#3

The Accounting Gap

52 Control Points · IFRS 15 · IFRS 16

Closing the gap between management P&L and statutory accounts before the auditor finds it. IFRS 15, IFRS 16 and reconciliation templates included.

Get on Gumroad
#4

Landed Intelligence

True P&L Cost of Corridors 2026

Full landed cost and EBITDA impact calculation, Incoterms, working capital formula, supply chain finance instruments, Red Sea and Hormuz analysis.

Get on Gumroad
#5

The War CFO

90-Day Restructuring · Stabilise · Refinance

The complete CFO restructuring methodology. Stabilise EBITDA, refinance the balance sheet, transform the P&L. Bank committee preparation and 2026 refinancing market map.

Get on Gumroad
#6

Rebuilding the Future

Post-Crisis · Permanent Resilience

How to know you are genuinely stable versus temporarily quiet on EBITDA. Rebuilding trust with banks, clients and teams. Permanent resilience architecture.

Get on Gumroad
⚠️
The 7 Signs You Are in the Red Zone

7 warning signals that precede every cash crisis — EBITDA distortion, working capital trap, covenant drift, P&L blind spots. With a 5-minute CFO self-diagnostic checklist.

Free — get it below
📊
The Crisis CFO Excel Toolkit

6 pre-built tabs: 90-day cash runway model · Covenant dashboard with automatic alerts · Trigger List · 90-day action plan · IFRS reconciliation template · KPI dashboard.

Included in full pack
Free — immediate download

The 7 Signs You Are in the Red Zone

Enter your email. Get the CFO diagnostic checklist now.

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Full series $397 · Individual volumes from $49 · Available on Gumroad and Amazon Kindle

Full series — $397
Join the Team

Human-scale.
By design.

Big4PM is built to work from anywhere — remote diagnostics, on-site when it matters, and SaaS tools that continue delivering value between engagements. The goal is to scale impact, not headcount.

We grow with intention. When we bring someone in, it's because we see something in them — a way of thinking, a depth of experience, a willingness to learn — that we want to build on together. We invest in our people the way we invest in our clients: for the long term.

What we look for
  • —A genuine appetite for the work — not the title
  • —Comfortable in front of a CFO, a bank committee, or a board — with real numbers
  • —GCC or European market experience — or both
  • —Willing to work without a safety net — and excited by it
  • —Humble enough to keep learning — from every client, every crisis, every colleague
What this is not

Not a stepping stone. Not a lifestyle brand. Not a place where you produce reports that nobody reads. If you join Big4PM, you will be on the file — named, accountable, and visible to the client from day one.

Send us your profile
AI Organisation Transformation

AI that works
on your data, not against it.

AI governance financial data CFO IFRS
⟳
Replace ungoverned Shadow AI

Your finance teams are already using AI — on spreadsheets, on P&L data, on forecasts. Most of it is ungoverned: no audit trail, no data boundary, no explainability. The risk is not AI itself. The risk is AI on data your board has not approved and your auditors cannot trace.

⊡
Private deployment on your own infrastructure

Models run on your infrastructure, on your data, with no data leaving your environment. Every output is traceable, IFRS-compatible, and explainable — to your auditors, your board, and your regulators. This is the standard that enterprise AI should meet. Most of it does not.

◈
Via Ethical AI Certify

Deployed via Ethical AI Certify — certification-grade AI governance for organisations that need to demonstrate responsible, auditable AI use at board and regulator level.

Visit Ethical AI Certify

Organisations our principals have served

LVMH Hermès Kering Sanofi Veolia Danone Pernod Ricard Michelin Vinci Atos Vodafone Etisalat Inditex Alcatel Renault Saint-Gobain

"What I rarely find in advisory is people who think like operators. Who walk into a room, look at the balance sheet, and tell you something true — not something comfortable. Big4PM did that from the first conversation. They stayed until the work was done. I did not have to chase a deliverable or explain my business twice."

— CFO, European mid-market industrial group

Start the Conversation

Three questions
before the deck.

New — Remote Diagnostic

Upload your financials.
Get your War Room diagnostic.

Balance sheet, P&L, and cash flow. Upload once — Claude extracts the key metrics, asks you five targeted questions, and produces a first War Room reading in under 6 minutes. The full action plan is available at $490.

Run a free diagnostic → 6 minutes · Free · No account required

We do not start with a presentation. We start with your numbers. Three questions — and we already know more about your situation than most advisors would after a week. Or subscribe to the Crisis Intelligence newsletter — one signal, once a week, for CFOs navigating disruption.

"What percentage of your gross margin passes through a disruption zone right now?"

"If that flow stopped tomorrow, how many days before your board sees the real balance sheet impact — not the management estimate?"

"Who in your organisation has authority to decide a route switch in under 24 hours?"

Write to us

We respond within 24 hours.

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One signal per week. Cash, margin, corridors, lender dynamics — for CFOs who need to stay ahead.

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Engagement Terms

  • No Data, No Fee — if the data cannot support a reliable diagnostic, we say so before we start
  • Senior-led methodology — remote or on-site, scaled through SaaS tools that work between engagements
  • Diagnostic first — we tell you what we find, clearly, without softening it
  • Longer engagements are earned — not assumed, not sold in advance
  • Pricing in USD · by engagement · discussed in conversation