A company in financial distress, as defined by the Companies Act of 2008, is one that appears to be reasonably unlikely to either fulfill debt obligations or remain solvent during the ensuing six months. For the likes of Comair, it would have been the former, whilst SAA and Edcon would have most likely fallen under the latter. This leads me to question whether we are likely to have hundreds of companies filing for business rescue over the next few weeks, if not months, and how many of them can be rescued.