TOM Burton, a man who has picked over the bones of more companies than you can shake a stick at, cannot decide whether at 47 years of age he should buy himself an electric guitar.

It seems an odd dilemma for the head of the Scottish corporate recovery division at big-four accountancy firm Ernst & Young, as he sits in a conference room in his suit and tie, a man who has laid off countless staff, shut factories and dismantled companies.

While his most recent assignment - the administration of Dundee FC - has shot him into the limelight, the list of enterprises Burton has been called in to sort out reads like a Who's Who of former Scottish high-fliers. These include Scotia Holdings, Melville Dundas, PSL Holdings, HCI Hospital, Fife Energy and a number of Aberdeen split-capital trusts.

Surprisingly, Burton's favourite song is not the Rolling Stones' appropriately titled Sympathy for the Devil, but rather Cream's Sunshine of Your Love.

It's also hard to imagine Burton belting out: ''I'll soon be with you my love, to give you my dawn surprise.'' But he did.

In music as it is in the world of business - and Burton would be the first to agree - timing is critical.

Alas, Burton's timing was out - no offence to his musical ability intended - when as a young bass player in a Glasgow pub band, he quit just months before the outfit became 1980s cult group Love and Money.

It was clearly the ideal name for a band that contained a young man who would one day become one of Scotland's most respected accountants - although it wasn't to be, and Burton says he has no regrets.

Burton began his professional career as a scientist. Born and bred in Carntyne, in the east end of Glasgow, he left school and went to work as chemist at a city factory.

''If you want to know what boredom really is, go to work as a chemist in a factory,'' Burton recalls. ''If you have a scientific, inquiring mind, that will knock it right out of you.''

Four years later, he went to Glasgow College of Technology - now Caledonian University - to study business, and half way through concentrated on accountancy.

On the day that he graduated, Burton got his first taste of insolvency procedure.

He said: ''I've never forgotten that day. I picked up my wife - well, she's my ex-wife now - in the car to go the graduation ceremony, and the company she worked for had just gone into liquidation.

''She was made redundant along with the rest of the workers there. It was a pretty disturbing moment, considering we hardly had any money.

''I always try to remember what it is like to sit on the other side of the desk.''

After graduating, he trained as a chartered accountant in Glasgow then went to London, where he worked for KPMG and Deloitte & Touche. In the late 1990s, he joined HLB Kidson to lead its corporate recovery practice in the south east of England.

In 1999, he was head-hunted by Ernst & Young to ''kick-start'' the corporate recovery practice in Scotland, and he jumped at the chance.

Coming home has been something of a change of life for Burton. He took up running and, while he has three sons from his first marriage, he became a father for the first time in almost two decades to a baby girl last year.

''It keeps you young,'' he said.

When he first came back to Scotland, he moved to the west end of Glasgow - but has since relocated to a small village in Stirlingshire, where he runs 10 miles every weekend.

''I'm building up to running the New York marathon,'' he said. ''But it's fantastic. In the west end, I was running past curry shops. In Stirlingshire, I'm running around glorious rural Scotland, which is unbeatable.''

So, it's still a matter of timing.

''I really would like to buy myself a guitar and start playing again, and I will,'' said Burton, who admits he hasn't strummed a chord or picked a lick in years - but once harboured ambitions of being the next Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix.

''It's just that, well, I was in a little guitar store in Glasgow at lunch time a few weeks ago and I was talking to the owner, who told me he could spot a middle-age crisis coming through the door at 20 paces.

''I'm not quite sure why he told this to me, but when he caught me looking at the expensive-ish guitars, he said, 'Bet you used to play in a band when you were young'.

''The timing issue aside, I'm definitely going to do it soon. I'm going to buy myself a nice guitar.''

Burton denies that his decision to buy a new guitar, or run the New York marathon, his decision to remarry and move to the country are in any way signs of a mid-life crisis.

''Not something I even think about,'' he insisted. But does it ever get him - the pain of the companies he must deal with on an almost daily basis, even though their pain is often his gain.

''Never. Corporate recovery is conceptually misunderstood,'' he said. ''Around 85% of the companies I'm involved with survive in one form or another. My objective is to get as much as I can for the creditors, and I can get usually get more for a business by selling it on rather closing it down.''

Never?

''Well, What Every Woman Wants was a depressing experience. There were a lot of people, around 2500 jobs on the line, so yes, that one got to me.

''But you have to remember, that's the nature of the job, to get involved in troubled situations.

''The trick is to get in early enough - usually at the profits-warning stage. If you can do that, you may not have to cut off an arm or leg, and you might even just be able to save the company whole.''

Burton brief

Best moment? I don't want to be unfair to my three sons, but getting a daughter last year was just fantastic.

Worst moment? Well, it was almost a worst moment - we were selling a company and neither party could agree on anything and they both just walked out.

What drives you? The next job - the cliche is true, you're only as good as your last job.

Favourite book? Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

What music are you listening just now? Franz Ferdinand.

As a child, what did you want to be? Footballer.