Dates for the diary

Infrastructure investment seminar

NOTE: This event has been postponed due to the UK Infrastructure Bank's pre-election restrictions. More information on the postponed date will be announced in due course. 

The Corporate Finance Faculty and the UK Infrastructure Bank are hosting a seminar in Leeds in June. As well as keynote speeches, an expert panel will explore where we are likely to see investment in UK infrastructure in the near and longer term, and the challenges in delivering that investment.

‘Solving the UK’s infrastructure investment challenge’ will be held at the Marriot hotel in Leeds on the morning of 19 June. Registration will start at 09:00, with the first speech at 09:30, followed by a panel discussion featuring infrastructure advisory and investment experts.

John Flint, chief executive officer of the UK Infrastructure Bank and former group CEO of HSBC, will give the keynote speech, outlining where the bank sees the infrastructure investment opportunities in the UK, as well as how public and private finance can work together in infrastructure investment.

The panel discussion – Investing in a Greener Future: Overcoming Hurdles in Energy Transition and Infrastructure – will feature:

• Emily Sidhu, managing director of banking and investments at the UK Infrastructure Bank;
• Louise Shaw, EY partner, energy and infrastructure corporate finance;
• Richard Goodfellow, head of infrastructure, projects and energy group, Addleshaw Goddard; and
• Daniel Grosvenor, Deloitte partner and head of government and infrastructure and global FA lead for power and utilities.

The UK Infrastructure Bank is based in Leeds and was founded in June 2021. It has invested almost £2bn in energy transition and levelling-up infrastructure projects to date.

The free event will run until 11:30. Places can be booked at here.

Liverpool innovation summit

The 2024 Liverpool City Region (LCR) Innovation Investment Summit will be held on 16 May at the LJMU Student Life Building. It will run from 09:00-16:30 and is free. This is the third LCR Innovation Investment Summit aimed at those working in life sciences and investors and advisers in the sector, and brings together policymakers, investors, business leaders, financiers, advisers and other stakeholders from across the private and public sectors. 

The keynote speakers are:

• Katherine Fairclough, CEO, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority;
• Professor Janet Hemingway, director, iiCON;
• Laura Kilcrease, CEO, Alberta Innovates;
• Jon Moulton, chairman, Better Capital fund vehicles;
• Martin Walton, CFO, QuantuMDx; and
• Lisa Hazelden, chief product officer, Innovate UK.

Book your free place here.

Faculty AGM

The Corporate Finance Faculty’s annual general meeting will be held at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on 20 June. The meeting starts at 12:30 with lunch, followed by the presentation of a review of the faculty’s work over the past year by ICAEW head of corporate finance, David Petrie, and faculty chairman Alistair Brew. They will also set out faculty priorities for the rest of this year and into 2025. Members can book here. 

Faculty representation

The ACA and Corporate Finance

The faculty has given feedback to the ICAEW Council's proposed changes to the ACA qualification, with particular regard to corporate finance content.

Alistair Brew, Corporate Finance Faculty chair, has been in conversation with Will Holt, who heads the ICAEW’s Education and Training team, on a proposed revised syllabus to ensure that it remains relevant to ACAs pursuing a career in corporate finance or deals.

The ICAEW education and training team will provide feedback on the new finalised ACA this autumn.

Intellectual property assets

David Petrie, ICAEW head of corporate finance, represented the Institute and Corporate Finance Faculty members at an ‘Investing in Innovation’ event hosted by Viscount Camrose, minister for AI and intellectual property, in March. The key topic under discussion was the future of IP finance. 

At the event, held at the House of Commons, World Intellectual Property Organization director general Daren Tang launched a report into the UK’s IP-backed finance landscape. The meeting came as certain UK banks have committed to engage more actively with IP lending.

Viscount Camrose said: “Accessing the right finance at the right time is critical for firms looking to expand, and companies can now leverage their individual intellectual properties to help unlock new opportunities and drive growth.”

And Tang said: “IP financing will unlock new paths for enterprises to grow, but still feels unfamiliar to many key stakeholders. It is therefore time for us to move this conversation beyond IP specialists and experts to get those in finance, investment, accountancy and valuation involved. IP offices are no longer just IP registries, but important builders of a country’s innovation ecosystem and will play a central role as catalysts for IP finance.”

Small businesses and growth

Oxford’s ‘Access to Finance for Small Businesses’ round table took place at the end of March, organised by Goldman Sachs at the Said Business School in Oxford.

This round table, attended by ICAEW head of corporate finance David Petrie, followed Goldman Sachs’ recently released Generation Growth: The Small Business Manifesto, a series of policy recommendations informed by a survey of more than 550 high-potential businesses from across the UK. Under discussion were the key challenges small businesses face and how the policy landscape impacts high-potential companies in the UK, and how policy agendas might help accelerate growth.

UK finance conference

The recent UK Finance M&A Conference saw ICAEW head of corporate finance David Petrie joining an expert panel discussing what keeps dealmakers awake at night. The consensus of the panel was that we remain in a fragile market, which could be derailed at any moment due to geopolitics. But despite that, positive factors to support increased deal activity were highlighted:

• likely fall in interest rates by the end of the year;
• environmental, social and governance driving deals, with a need to invest to support net-zero ambitions;
• technology and innovation continuing to drive deals;
• AI creating opportunities to acquire companies with tech capability; and
• generative AI helping filter suitable opportunities efficiently and quickly. 

As well as the panel discussion, Ian Hart, outgoing director general of the Takeover Panel, gave a speech, as did Tim Skeet, senior adviser at the International Capital Market Association.

Updates

Young corporate financiers event

The Corporate Finance Faculty held its inaugural ‘Building a career in corporate finance’ event at the end of March at Chartered Accountants’ Hall, for young professionals embarking on a deal advisory career.

More than 70 attendees heard from three speakers that the tough long hours of a career in M&A are far outweighed by the reward and fulfilment of seeing the impact their advice has on clients’ futures. 

The three speakers were:

• Soham Gehani (1), associate director in PwC’s corporate finance team, who trained as an ACA with Grant Thornton, before working for the corporate finance team, and then on to the ESG Foundation and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership;
• Victoria Giles (2), M&A partner at Grant Thornton, who trained as an accountant with Associated Newspapers, before joining Grant Thornton’s corporate finance team in 2010; and
• Amrit Mahbubani (3), corporate advisory director at Panmure Gordon, who trained as an ACA with EY before moving into the Big Four firm’s capital markets team in 2016, then to the FCA in 2019 and on to Panmure Gordon in 2022. 

The audience heard about the importance of building networks from the start to develop their career. Not being afraid to ask questions of senior members of the team is also critical if a corporate financier wants to develop. Advisers’ careers can also be enhanced by finding a niche passion.