Accountancy Firms

Why does The Corporate Finance Network exist?

The Corporate Finance Network was launched to fulfil a massive gap in the market.

Do you describe yourself as 'Accountants and Business Advisors'? If so, do you believe you can truly promote and deliver corporate finance services?

If an accountancy firm is going to describe itself as a ‘Business Advisor’ surely it must be able to offer these services to its clients.

Services such as those listed below can offer solutions to many of our clients' commercial issues. Most SME businesses will require at least one kind of corporate finance advice at some point in their business’ life, such as fundraising assistance, exit planning, acquisitive growth or a valuation expertise.

If your client doesn’t believe you can assist with this, where will they go? Don’t run the risk of losing your best clients to larger firms because (you and) they don’t know you can advise on these issues.

Corporate Finance includes:

• Strategic & business planning
• Fundraising for growth & working capital
• Lead advisory & transaction services
• M&A
• Due Diligence
• Disposals & vendor mandates
• Exit planning
• Valuations

Before the launch of The Corporate Finance Network, regional independent accountancy firms had limited choices if they wanted to offer their clients a high quality of corporate finance advice, which was also cost effective & efficient for the firm to manage.

Many general practice firms struggle to offer this specialised service, usually working alone & without much support.

As an exclusive member of The Corporate Finance Network in a particular area, your clients & contacts can be assured that you have the capability & skills, and your reputation for providing this service can be upheld.

Do you already do CF work?

• Probably, but...
• is it just on a reactive basis?
• do all your clients know you can do it?
• do other professionals know you can, & refer CF & GP work to you?
• is it inefficient, having to re-learn each time & find suitable checklists, standard documents, research?
• are your team learning the more commercial skills to do this work, or is it just partners who can do it?

The Corporate Finance Network provides:

• On-site training, coaching & regular national conferences - to teach, inspire and share ideas
• Marketing and PR, both locally and nationally, to businesses and professional contacts
• Provision of systems, standard documents, checklists & work programmes
• A network of non-competing accountancy firms to help with research, contacts and actually getting deals done!
• Access to a technical team for specialist advice – see the profiles showing the extensive expertise of our Executive Team

Can I join?

Our member firms all have similar traits, and whilst these aren’t necessarily mandatory, this type of firm seems to fit well:

• A UK based general practice accountancy firm with 3-8 partners, regulated by ICAEW, ACCA, ICAS, ICAI or FSA
• Probably already offering some sort of other ‘added-value’ service to their clients, with a desire by the management team to move away from being a traditional compliance-led accountancy firm
• Unlikely to have a full-time corporate finance partner/ senior manager/department in the firm but partners have already advised on this type of work (probably only occasionally & reactively)
• Varied client base with at least 5 audit clients > £5.6m turnover

If that list appears comparable to your firm, for further information or to enquire about becoming a member, please Contact Us.