Funds were awash with cash, mergers & acquisitions activity was booming and businesses couldn't go bust if they tried. Inevitably, predictably, the bubble burst (or is that crunched?). So the end of the world is nigh. Not so, insist Best Practice contributors this month.
Grant Thornton's Dominic Bolton is being kept plenty busy on M&A work in an evolving but challenging publishing industry. Clive Lewis and Antony Fanshawe look at every possible way under the sun for a business to refinance, in our Raising Finance special report.
Has it all gone too far the other way? Are creditors calling time unreasonably? Maybe so. But you can't always wait for the market to correct itself. There are opportunities and risks to be taken, such as whether home information packs provider Bluechip should expand.
Look at your clients' business models, make sure they're resilient and sensible, then economic and credit downturns can be ridden.
Go on then, they're waiting for you.