When a company is waist-deep in debt, it can feel like it will never escape. But a takeover, while bruising to the ego, need not be the end of the world, says Mel Ewell.

As chief executive since 2003 of Amey, the UK road and rail maintenance business, he has seen the company rise from the brink of oblivion in 2002, to being taken over by Ferrovial, the infrastructure group, in 2003, to a return to health.