New club holds mtg.

The defunct Wharton Restructuring Club remerged as the Turnaround Management Club last night in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. A panel of representatives from high profile consulting firms including Arthur Andersen and Company, Coopers and Lybrand and Nachman, Hays, and Associates attended the introductory meeting hoping to attract students from all schools at the University to the organization. The purpose of the turnaround management, according to club founder and Wharton graduate Rob Lahiri, is to "save the entrepreneur's dream and reinvent corporate America" by providing specialized consulting to failing businesses. "As we speak, hundreds of companies across the nation are ill," Lahiri said in his introductory remarks to the more than 70 students gathered. The panelists addressed some of the causes that lead once prosperous businesses to file for chapter eleven -- bankruptcy -- and what turnaround consultants can do to assist. "Today's business environment is much more complex," said Patrick Fodale of Arthur Andersen and Co. "The overarching cause for a business's failure is that the management is sticking with old technology and very often is not listening to what its customers want. For instance, does Domino's Pizza sell pizzas or does it really just have the most efficient delivery system?" Lahiri said he first decided to enter turnaround consulting after he left the University during his senior year to assist his father with his ailing steel business. "We were running an 80,000 foot steel fabrication plant with a diesel generator," Lahiri said. Together with his father, Lahiri managed to restructure the business. "We ended up contracting for the stainless steel window trim for the 1992 Pontiac," he added. Students from all across the University expressed interest in joining the club and learning more about the career opportunities that exist in turnaround consulting. "It seems like a job where you can really see that you made a difference," said first year Wharton graduate student Mike Hill. "With so many startups trying to go global, it seems like there is a lot of opportunity in this field."