Corporate Finance Monthly Update

It’s been a busy month for the Corporate Finance team. We have undertaken several buy-side due diligence projects and valuation engagements. Our client service offering has ranged from a farm café to animal health products.

Despite this, we always have spare capacity and welcome to referral work.

Funding

Interest rates reduced for the first time in more than four years this month with the Bank of England reducing its base rate from 5.25% to 5%. It is widely expected that there will be further rate cuts before the year end.

When preparing accounts and collaborating with clients if we see interest rates on existing debt looks high, or the debt is not suitable for the client in terms of there being cashflow issue, or not suitable for their growth plans or is up for renewal then let us know.

If the interest clients are paying across the different types of facilities is greater than the following, please contact us to see if there is a better product for them.

• Invoice Finance loan – above 3% plus base

• Business loan – 9%+

• Commercial mortgages – 7%+

• Vehicle finance/Asset finance – This changes a lot dependent on the asset but anything above 7%

Team meetings

To ensure we keep everyone updated in terms of what we are doing as service line, as well as our monthly newsletters, we will be shortly arranging some Teams call to go through in more detail how to broach the subject of succession planning with clients, and as soon as all the office refits are completed we will be out on the road to meet you all.

Succession/exit planning/Sale mandates

One of the key areas we would like to assist clients with is to discuss with them their plans for the future and how they intend to exit the business, whether that that is to sell the business, orchestrate a management buyout, or for the very simply close the business down when they want to retire, in the very simplest of businesses.

Ideally, we get the opportunity to speak to these clients as early on in their journey as possible to give them the right steer, so when you speak to clients whether as part of a pre year end tax planning meeting, accounts finalisation meeting or a casual chat consider asking them at the opportune time what is their future strategy? If you are not sure about to approach this please do not hesitate to reach out to the team.

Referrals

We have had another large month in terms of referrals so far with 10 referrals across all the offices and professional contacts. The nature of the work is also very varied from valuation work to sale mandate opportunities and MBOs.

Thank you for the support.

New Joiner

Freddie Mills has joined the department in the Stratford office. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte in 2021 and has been working in corporate finance since. Outside the office, you’ll find him following his beloved football team Chelsea.

Annual Leave

Despite the extremely busy time, Hannah Wilkinson has gone to Africa for two weeks on safari. We hope she packed her suncream!