Most discussions of strategic planning tend to focus on business growth or maintenance. There is relatively little discussion of managing situations of business decline, particularly in terms of the roles and responsibilities of those directors who are responsible for leading the company, and their relationships with influential third parties such as creditors, shareholders and employees. This book sets out a benchmarking framework that can be used by those involved in such situations to check their approach against best practice, identify alternative strategies to resolve governance issues and approach distress situations using a systematic rather than ad-hoc approach. The increasing number of examples of companies reported in the media which are recognising and attempting to deal with such situations indicates the importance of this area to the development of management practice and theory.