Stephen D’Angelo had seen a turnaround or two before joining Dick Corp. in February 2003. Before being brought in as the chief restructuring officer for the fledging construction company, he owned his own consulting company and estimates that he’s done seven full-fledged turnarounds.
So, it’s no surprise he was called upon to help the organization regroup.
The company grew rapidly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but it hit a rough patch after getting caught in the downturn of the power market. The company had almost a billion dollars worth of power projects under construction, one of which was with Enron.
“The company was in a real dire situation from a liquidity standpoint,” D’Angelo says. “They had a tremendous amount of bonds outstanding. They had, obviously, contracts where construction needed to be finished, but the ability to collect the money on those projects was in doubt.”
D’Angelo saw potential at Dick Corp. and decided to restructure it as dck worldwide LLC.
“You need to get back to basics,” says D’Angelo, now chairman, president and CEO of the $650 million company. “A lot of turnarounds, it’s about getting back to basics. You need to be flexible. When you are in a turnaround, it’s really not about a long-term vision and a long-term plan. It’s really about some short-term goals and being creative and flexible to help achieve those goals.”
