Still, investors' faith in the new management team, led by the turnaround firm of Alvarez & Marsal, remains noteworthy.

Atkins planned to lay off 40 percent of its employees, cut its marketing budget for next year by almost half and hired a turnaround firm.

Merry-Go-Round Enterprises is hiring a turnaround firm to guide it out of bankruptcy.

HealthSouth said yesterday that it was working with Alvarez & Marsal, a turnaround firm that it has hired, to find ways to cut costs and stabilize operations.

In 1996, Kughn sold a majority interest to Wellspring Partners LLD, a Chicago-based national turnaround firm headed by Martin Davis.

MobileStar hired the Diablo Management Group, a turnaround firm, to oversee a sale, then laid off its 88 employees on Tuesday.

Small numbers of private investors used this bottom-fishing technique throughout the 1960's and 1970's, including turnaround firms like Phoenix Northeast in Philadelphia and Whitman, Heffernan, Rhein in New York.

A turnaround firm called Alvarez & Marsal is running the company under the direction of the Ohio bankruptcy court.

Insisting he was "totally for capitalism," he contrasted Bill Gates and Microsoft becoming "extraordinarily rich" by "providing a service" with turnaround firms such as Bain stripping companies down for profit.

Stan Speer has joined Alvarez & Marsal, the turnaround firm, as a managing director in its Los Angeles office.