Act A — The Covenant Clock
Bank covenant breaches in manufacturing companies follow a pattern that experienced turnaround CFOs recognize immediately: a triggering operational event reduces cash generation, fixed cost coverage ratios breach the debt covenant floor, the bank issues a waiver request, and the company has thirty to ninety days to present a credible remediation plan before the bank exercises its security rights. The remediation plan must demonstrate near-term cash recovery — not through optimistic business assumptions, but through specific operational changes with verifiable execution timelines that a skeptical bank credit officer will accept.
An interim CFO who has managed this cycle before knows what the bank wants to see in week one. An interim CFO who has a corporate finance background but no manufacturing turnaround experience learns it in month three — which is the month the bank's patience expires.
The difference between these two outcomes is the single most critical determinant of whether the company survives the covenant breach.
Act B — The Story
Theo's production line refrigeration system had failed catastrophically in February. Three weeks of reduced capacity had cut monthly cash generation from $380,000 to $140,000. His current ratio had fallen below the 1.15x minimum in his credit facility. His bank's account manager called on a Thursday morning. He had seventy-two hours to provide a preliminary response.
His CFO of eleven years had retired eighteen months earlier. Theo had not replaced him — the controller was managing adequately until the crisis. His accountant provided one name: a retired CFO with thirty years in corporate finance and two prior CFO roles at mid-sized Ontario businesses. Available immediately. Never managed a manufacturing turnaround.
Theo called four board contacts that evening. One had recently been through a similar situation and mentioned that his company had used a platform to find the right person. He sent the link.
Theo registered at midnight: interim CFO, manufacturing, cash flow crisis, bank covenant, Ontario, Southern Ontario preferred, seventy-two-hour urgency.
Christine accepted the introductory message at 7:30 the following morning.
Christine had managed eight prior manufacturing cash flow engagements. She had presented four covenant waiver packages to Royal Bank credit officers. She had produced two 13-week cash flow models with manufacturing-specific cost separation — what every bank credit officer in a covenant waiver negotiation wants to see as the anchoring document.
By 11:00 AM she was on-site in Brantford. By 4:00 PM she had completed a preliminary 13-week cash flow model based on Theo's actual cost structure and the repair timeline she had confirmed with the equipment vendor. By 6:00 PM she had reviewed the covenant waiver playbook she had developed across her prior engagements and identified the five-point remediation narrative the bank's credit officer would require.
Theo's bank response — 90-day waiver request, based on Christine's preliminary cash flow model — was submitted on Friday afternoon, within the seventy-two-hour window.
The waiver was granted. Christine remained as interim CFO for nine months, through the equipment repair and the subsequent refinancing.
Act C — Why This Market Stays Broken Without Infrastructure
Christine's eight prior manufacturing turnaround engagements were not on LinkedIn. Her availability was not on any roster. Her background — controller in manufacturing, interim CFO in turnaround, eight engagements in twelve years — was visible only to the boards and advisors who had worked with her directly and referred her within their network.
Theo's network contained excellent people who did not know Christine existed because they had not personally been through a manufacturing covenant breach. His accountant's referral was the best his network could produce under time pressure.
Thin market infrastructure makes the transition-type subspecialty visible — encoding manufacturing turnaround, covenant waiver experience, and bank communication track record as searchable attributes — at the moment the covenant clock is running and the difference between the right interim and the wrong one is the company's survival.
Characters are fictional. Bank credit facility covenant structures, waiver request processes in Ontario manufacturing, and 13-week cash flow modeling as a bank remediation standard are real. DeeperPoint is building the infrastructure this story describes.