In 2011, a manufacturer in Japan was holding strong. Their business was built on imports, exports, and local workers handling everything in between. Everything appeared to be set up for success. But when a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck just east of the Oshika Peninsula, the viability of the business was suddenly shaken. Their shipping lanes, supply, and workforce vanished in a matter of six minutes. How could they continue to operate when their infrastructure collapsed?

This type of black swan event can happen to any business in any industry. The challenge your company faces during the good times, is how do you set up and prepare for the downturns – either economically, geopolitical, or natural – your debt and financing structure should be in place to keep your operations viable at a moment’s notice.

Today’s environment, shaped by the 2026 Iran conflict and the energy shock that followed, is already moving through capital markets in measurable ways. Liquidity, cost of capital, commodity exposure, and investor risk appetite can shift faster than most planning cycles can keep up.

Corporate finance teams must be positioned to respond when disruption arrives.

The Global Economy Has No Firewall

Geographic distance provides limited protection from geopolitical risk.

Supply chains are global. A business that does not manufacture anything in a conflict region may still source raw materials or chemical inputs that travel through affected shipping corridors. A company whose domestic energy costs feel stable may operate logistics networks or production facilities in regions where energy prices have moved sharply. While (as of today!) it seems that the Strait of Hormuz may reopen, it is unclear when the situation will normalize, with a final agreement still to be agreed and global oil stockpiles largely depleted. Even the oil and gas sector, which many assume benefits uniformly from rising energy prices, faces direct exposure when production infrastructure sits in a conflict zone.

Shell had a major facility hit in Qatar. Exxon Mobil has roughly 20 percent of its global oil equivalent production and 5 percent of its global refining and chemical capacity in the Middle East (per 8-K filed April 8, 2026).

The companies that appear most insulated from risk sometimes turn out to be the most concentrated in it.

Redbridge does not tell clients that every company faces the same risk. What the data shows, across hundreds of bank and counterparty relationships, is that almost every company is impacted, whether positively or negatively, somewhere. Companies that manage this well map their exposure before a lender asks them to.

Florence Hirner brings a background of managing finances, supply chain, and treasury relationships to Redbridge based on hands-on experiences:

Risk and Opportunity Arrive Together

The risk side demands attention first. Liquidity is the core concern.

Companies need access to sufficient capital to absorb disruption, whether that comes from demand softness, rising input costs, supply chain restructuring, or the working capital requirements of a production ramp-up. That access does not require cash sitting idle on a balance sheet. Committed lines of credit, working capital optimization, and cost structure improvements all serve the same function. The goal is to ensure the company can operate through a deteriorating scenario without being forced into a financing event at the worst point in the credit cycle.

Capital markets do not stay open uniformly during periods of geopolitical stress. European HY primary issuance effectively shut down through the end of March, with only a handful of deals clearing. In the US, investment grade issuers who have current shelf registrations and documentation ready can move quickly when a brief window opens. Those who were not ready either paid a significant premium or had to wait for the next window. The companies that issued quickly were prepared.

Tenor matters as much as pricing. A company two years into a five-year facility has to ask what the refinancing environment may look like in 2028, not whether today’s rate is favorable. Extending the maturity now, even at a modest cost, buys time the market may not offer later. Debt approaching maturity during disruption creates pressure at the worst possible moment.

However, for companies with strong liquidity, disruption opens acquisition doors that are normally closed. Businesses come to market that were not considering a sale six months earlier. Owners who held out for peak valuations start reconsidering. The price adjustments may not be dramatic, but they can be meaningful, and the pool of sellers can expand when uncertainty rises. Having a financing plan in place avoids a scramble that inevitably leads to less-than-ideal terms. The same dynamic applies to supplier relationships, joint ventures, and acquisition opportunities. Taking advantage of those windows requires working capital and, in some cases, financing to bridge the gap before cash flow collection catches up to increased costs from higher production volume. Acting on those windows starts with addressing your own liquidity first.

What Finance Leaders Should Do Now

Line up liquidity early. Waiting to see how conditions develop before approaching lenders is a reliable way to negotiate from a position of weakness. Banks are already conducting internal reviews, asking relationship managers to identify clients at risk. Companies that go to their lenders first, with clear exposure mapping and credible scenario analysis, have very different conversations than those who wait to be called.

Stress-test internal plans against a genuine downside. Management presentations to investors are focused on growth and the upside. Internal planning should include a risk-focused approach. Modeling what happens to the business and loan covenants under an extended period of disruption, including the liquidity implications at each stage, gives treasury teams something concrete to work from. The companies that have done this can speak with confidence to their lenders and their boards. Those that have not will have the conversation eventually, just without the preparation.

Stay alert to opportunity. New supplier relationships and acquisition targets may become available precisely because other organizations are under financial pressure. Being ready to act requires having already addressed the first two priorities.

An Independent Voice at the Table

Most corporate finance teams are aware that geopolitical disruption carries financial risk. The harder part is translating that awareness into specific decisions about capital structure, credit relationships, and market timing. Redbridge has worked with treasury teams through prior cycles of disruption. Accurate prediction matters less than preparation. The companies that come through best are usually those that did the structural work before disruption arrived.

If your organization is working through these questions now, Redbridge’s Debt Advisory team is available to help you understand the exposure and assess the options. The view is independent and unbiased.