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Three Tales of Corporate Transformation in this edition of the Bottom Line,

as Evan Davis and guests discuss what it takes to rescue a company in distress.

Hello and welcome to the program.

Now, the most exciting and perhaps the most valuable job in business

is that of the turnaround specialist,

the person who rescues

companies in danger to set them off on a new healthy life. It's a combination of business,

firefighter, doctor, nurse, and psychiatrist too. Well, today we'll hear some stories of corporate

turnarounds and we'll see what it takes to do the job well. And we'll start by spending a few minutes

with each of my guests to hear the outline of their particular cases. First up is Adam Crozier,

who's the former chief executive of the Football Association, former chief executive of the Royal Mail,

now running ITV. Adam, let's just focus on the Royal Mail, because that's a story that you've completed your tenure with.

I think you described it as the biggest corporate turnaround in the UK.

Just look back on it. Was it a success?

I mean, certainly it changed quite a lot while you were there, weren't there? Did you finish the job?

I think it was a success, but because it was such a enormous company with such deep-rooted problems,

we always knew, actually, it was probably going to take 10 or 15 years really to turn it around.

So I guess I got somewhere between a half and two-thirds of the way there.

When I started, I remember on the first Friday I was there,

the auditors coming to see me to inform me that we were technically insolvent,

which, given at the time we employed about 250,000 people,

...