Simon Freakley may only have done one audit during his time as a professional chartered accountant at Andersen, but as an insolvency practitioner he has seen hundreds of businesses, and turned them inside out and upside down.
Staring out at St Paul’s Cathedral from Kroll’s London office, Freakley admits he can barely believe three years have flashed by so quickly since he was thrust into the position of chief executive at Kroll, the corporate restructuring, investigative and forensic accounting company.
Three years ago this month, he was rushed out of a weekend away in France and told to hightail it to New York, where his then boss Michael Cherkasky asked him to take on the job of Kroll CEO.
At the time Cherkasky had been appointed chief executive of Marsh & McLennan a professional services company that had bought Kroll earlier in the year replacing Jeff Greenberg, who resigned under a cloud following US regulatory investigations into illegal payments by MMC’s brokers.
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Kroll’s notable cases over past 30 years include:
Restructuring Enron
Early in 2002, Kroll’s US corporate advisory subsidiary was given the monumental challenge of restructuring Enron, the collapsed energy giant with $65bn (£32bn) of assets.
With Kroll’s Steve Cooper at the helm as Enron’s interim CEO and chief restructuring officer, a Kroll team is still working with Enron’s current management and creditors committee to implement a viable plan to maximise value for the company’s stakeholders.
Unravelling Saddam Hussein’s financial network
The Kuwaiti government hired Kroll between 1990 and1991 to investigate the financial network used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to hide assets in the West. Kroll’s work linked Hussein to millions in assets held through nominees in the US and Europe, exposing his front companies and agents.
Profile: Simon Freakley, CEO of Kroll
