Edmond P. Freiermuth

Edmond P. Freiermuth

Business Consultant

Rightmaker.com

Ed Freiermuth has more than 40 years of experience in financing and advising small, medium-sized and large businesses. He has worked directly with the chief executive officers and other senior managers of more than 300 businesses having to deal with significant financial challenges or take advantage of great business opportunities.

Freiermuth has served on, or been an advisor to, the boards of 15 companies, including service as the chairman of the audit committee of a billion-dollar quick service restaurant chain. He has gained a broad perspective in matters of corporate governance and strategic direction. He has been retained by manufacturers, distributors and retailers of a wide variety of products as well as numerous service providers.

Prior to establishing his consulting business in 1982, Freiermuth was a banker. He was involved for 10 years in various functions related to commercial lending, primarily making and/or approving loans to companies with annual sales of $5 million to $250 million. He held positions as a credit analyst, loan officer, assistant vice president and vice president/general manager.

Freiermuth's financing-related experiences, in combination with his consulting, speaking and writing skills, have established him as one of the most uniquely qualified experts in business revitalization plans, as well as business strategy. He has worked closely with credit managers, lending officers, bankruptcy attorneys, in-house and outside general counsel, venture capitalists, accountants, investment bankers, and others seeking solutions to complex financial, marketing and operational problems. He has also developed an extensive network of private sources of debt and equity capital.

He has spoken at more than 200 meetings arranged by CEO groups, trade associations, universities, and lending institutions on the subjects of macroeconomics, the decline and rehabilitation of business organizations, and negotiations between borrowers and lenders. Freiermuth is also the author of two books on business management: Life After Debt, published by Dow Jones-Irwin, and Turnaround: Avoid Bankruptcy, a paperback published by an imprint of McGraw-Hill. The latter was originally published in hardcover as Revitalizing Your Business by Probus Publishing. He has also been a contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Chief Financial Officer International, The Wall Street Journal, Nation's Business and Small Business Reports as well as other leading publications.

He received his BA in economics at UCLA in 1969. After two years of experience in banking, he returned to the UCLA Anderson School of Management to earn his MBA, with a finance concentration, in 1973. While at graduate school, Freiermuth was a research and teaching assistant. He also completed the Executive Program at the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business Administration in 1979. Freiermuth resides in Los Angeles.

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Ed Freiermuth’s Economic Forecasting Track Record

Frequently taking a contrarian’s position, Ed Freiermuth has compiled a remarkably accurate record in calling the major turns in the direction of the U.S. economy. In 1989, he began a series of seminars forewarning business executives that a major economic contraction was imminent. During the next few years, he wrote, spoke and advised extensively on “Life After Debt,” crisis management, business turnarounds and how to survive the financial storms then taking place in the U.S.

In late 1992, Freiermuth predicted that a new period of economic prosperity was about to begin. He recommended that business executives implement action steps to position their companies to take advantage of the coming economic expansion. For several years he spoke and advised broadly on tactics for taking advantage of a growing economy. During the late 1990s as the boom morphed into a bubble economy, he advised clients and seminar participants to cash-in on enterprise values that were extraordinarily generous. That is, it was time to be a seller rather than a buyer or a builder of companies.

As the new millennium arrived, while most economists persisted in advising that the economy was poised for strong growth for the foreseeable future, Freiermuth sounded the alarm that many of the conditions that led to the previous downturn were again in evidence: overvalued equity markets; excessive amounts of credit extended to weak borrowers; and inadequate internal controls to manage businesses effectively. His presentation on “The Quake, the Tsunami and the Aftershocks” was again on target. The downward spiral in the equity markets was deep and many small and medium-sized businesses were adversely impacted.

In early 2003, Freiermuth urged business executives to prepare for positive economic developments by “Getting Ready to Ride the Next Economic Wave.” Once again his forecast was accurate. While the pain remained for some businesses, Freiermuth believed the economy was finally on the cusp of an economic expansion, prompted by Fed action to slash interest rates. GDP expansion was not as robust as the growth cycle in the 1990s but it produced exceptional opportunities for well-prepared business owners and managers, especially those in construction and real-estate related businesses.

Freiermuth warned in early 2007 that the U.S. and the global economy were facing accelerating risk. In the short run, this drove the economy higher. As is usually the case, however, the longer-term impact of speculative excess was Fed intervention and a change in economic direction. In short, savvy business owners needed to consider “Action Steps for an EVEN MORE Risky Economy,” and have a contingency plan ready for implementation, if economic conditions worsened. Regrettably, conditions deteriorated beyond the most gloomy of forecasts. His presentation to business executives on the “Threats and Opportunities of Ongoing Economic Turbulence and Volatile Credit Markets,” was again timely.

The current economic outlook remains highly uncertain. Freiermuth now believes that the global economy has entered a prolonged period of stagflation and de-leveraging. Opportunities exist for those businesses with strong balance sheets and the capacity to make strategic investments in human resources that will produce top line growth and operational efficiency.