Singapore · Situation
Turnaround and restructuring in Singapore
Turnaround work is where interim leadership is most obviously the right instrument. The mandate is intense, short and specific, and it frequently requires someone with no history in the business and no relationships to protect.
The first job is almost always cash visibility. The second is credibility with lenders. Everything structural comes after those two.
What this calls for
- Immediate thirteen-week cash visibility and control over outflows
- Lender and creditor negotiation with a defensible plan behind it
- Cost base restructuring, including the employment cost of doing it
- Reporting the board and the bank will believe
- A stabilisation plan with milestones somebody is accountable for
What is specific to Singapore
- A foreign-owned SME frequently cannot obtain an Employment Pass for a full-time foreign executive because of COMPASS. Contracted leadership is the only legal route to that expertise.
- Employer CPF is capped at S$17,340, so the saving is not statutory-cost avoidance but pure salary avoidance — a S$300,000 package against a S$120,000 retainer.
- Regional headquarters structures need CFO-grade capability across several ASEAN entities long before any one of them justifies a full-time hire.
- Titles are audited here, not decorative. MOM cross-checks job title, salary and company profile on every EP application, and MAS-regulated entities need named, approved appointment-holders. A nominal "fractional CFO" can simply be rejected as not credible for the role.
The Singapore numbers
Fractional, per monthLight advisory S$600–1,500/month; SME growth mandates S$1,500–4,000; startup and fundraising work S$3,000–8,000; embedded one to two days a week S$5,000–15,000+ (USD 3,900–11,700). A typical retainer buys 15–30 senior hours a month.
Full-time, all-inBase S$180,000–300,000 for a mid-market CFO or COO; all-in with CPF, bonus and insurance, S$210,000–390,000. With recruitment fees the true first-year cost runs S$294,000–501,000 — roughly USD 165,000–305,000.
SeveranceNo statutory severance. Retrenchment benefit is a tripartite norm rather than law — two weeks to one month of salary per year of service, with unionised firms typically at one month. Statutory notice runs to four weeks at five years’ service.