Firms ‘have weeks to offset decline’

THE head of Britain’s largest food wholesaler has warned that businesses facing a financial crisis in the recession have only weeks to take action before the spiral of decline gets a grip.

Booker chief executive Charles Wilson said that in the early 1990s it could take two years for financial distress to take hold in a business, whereas today it can be just two months.

This was partly due to computers and better communications, he said.