You can’t be what you can’t see, so having people show you that it’s possible to have both a demanding career in a fast-paced environment and a family is very important, says Liz Claydon, who heads up KPMG’s deal advisory practice in the UK. “I’ve felt really supported through my career. I’ve been fortunate in having both male and female role models. And I’m a big believer in making your own luck and managing your career.”
Claydon leads a team that employs 2,000 people. The mother of three is a role model for her staff, showing what’s possible as KPMG, like many other firms, seeks to demonstrate the flexibility needed to attract and retain a diverse workforce of skilled professionals. “Being a female in deals environment 20 years ago means I recognise what being in the minority feels like. However, from an early stage, it’s given me an understanding that you absolutely can thrive in any environment with the right support and coaching around you.”
She joined KPMG’s audit team in Leeds in 1991, having read physiology at the University of Leeds. “Looking back, my degree probably seems like an unconventional choice, but I took the strong advice to do a degree in a subject I enjoyed and to then move into something that would give enable me to develop a professional career. I knew the chance to study for an ACA or law would remain open.”
In 1994, she qualified as an ACA with first-time passes. As something of a high flyer, she began working on due diligence projects. It was a great experience “working one-to-one with a partner”, she says. Her first deal was a transaction involving a Harrogate car dealership “tucked away in an office next to the car showroom, much to the intrigue of the car salespeople. I’ve always been quite competitive and liked being challenged.”
Capital move
In 1996, Claydon joined the transaction services practice in Leeds that had just been set up. She cut her teeth on smaller deals, mainly in the food and retail sector, for both corporate and private equity buyers. A couple of years later, she moved to London, where the transaction services business was longer established, with 50 to 60 staff.
Her first job was a nine-month project in Staines, working on the resurrected IPO of Regus in 2001, which valued the serviced office business, founded by entrepreneur Mark Dixon, at $1.5bn.
“It was the first capital markets work I’d done and it was high profile. Regus was going through a huge amount of international growth and the sector was very dynamic. I worked with Geraldine Donohoe on that job – a great mentor and role model in my early years in London.”
After several months’ work on a deal for Diageo to acquire Californian wine business Kendall-Jackson (a deal that ultimately aborted), she ended up on a year-long secondment with the “extremely busy” Diageo M&A team.
“I worked on a number of divestments, effectively acting as the principal on one, which was a brilliant experience. It put me in the shoes of my clients, and really helped me with my promotion to director, and then to partner in 2007. At that stage of my career, I was thinking about my options. Do I move into industry or into an M&A department? But it was the variety of work at KPMG and the people that I worked with. I’ve always loved the people aspect of my job.”
As a newly promoted partner, she did a lot of divestment work for GSK after Emma Walmsley joined the pharmaceutical company as head of consumer healthcare products Europe. “The strategy was one of simplification; there was a need to sell a lot of the non-core consumer healthcare brands. That was an 18-month project, which I led. We helped GSK divest itself of about 100 brands across 50 different countries. We were doing not just diligence, but also separation, valuation and tax work. I really got to understand what it felt like to run a multidisciplinary global project for a big client.” In the US, Prestige Brands paid $660m for 17 GSK brands. Walmsley became GSK’s first female CEO in 2017.
In 2013, Claydon worked on the sale of Lucozade/Ribena. “We helped GSK get the asset ready for sale.” It was a carve-out that private equity was interested in, but ultimately it was sold to Suntory for £1.35bn. She also worked on Unilever’s carve-out of its frozen food business in 2006, which went to private equity – Permira – rather than a corporate, for €1.7bn.
Following the birth of her first son (she now has two sons and a daughter), she moved into a role supporting the head of transaction services and was surprised by how much she got out of it, learning broader stakeholder management skills and an understanding of the bigger growth strategy for the business. “It was the start of building my case for my current role. It meant I wasn’t travelling and was home at night. It gave me a different set of skills that enabled me to develop my partner case over the next few years. If you enjoy what you do, you put a good team around you and balance your home and work life. I feel privileged to be able to do that.”
M&A uncertainty
When it comes to the outlook for the deal advisory business, Claydon says the bounceback in the business-to-consumer space, and the shake up as a result of the shift online that accelerated during the pandemic, will continue to drive M&A.
“On the consumer healthcare side, there’s a lot of consolidation going on, which I think will continue for the next couple of years,” she says. “But it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out because it’s not the most attractive opportunity for private equity, primarily because the synergies are difficult to get to if you’re not a big trade company and the valuations are pretty high.”
She also points to the energy sector as perhaps being a rich seam to mine because of oil prices and the energy transition. “All the big energy corporates are looking at their future strategies. Octopus Energy, Centrica and BP have all been busy with fundraising.”
Claydon has been in her current role for three years – two of which have involved the COVID-19 crisis, and now Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine and the economic fall-out from that. “While nobody could have predicted the events the world has seen in recent years, it comes back to the human element and supporting those affected, which will always be important. I think it’s safe to say we won’t be going back to a status quo anytime soon, as complexity and uncertainty will remain. As a deals business, we’ll continue helping clients to navigate challenges they face as they look to transform and grow.”
Capital markets are quieter, but M&A overall is holding up, she says. They’re only able to look forward six to nine months with any certainty: “Once inflation, interest rates and commodity prices start to really impact consumer confidence, that is when we’d expect to see M&A dampen down – we’re very mindful of that. But you’ve got this complexity on the other side. Clients are thinking about selling assets or considering what they need to buy, how they need to change their strategy and how they need to adopt technology. And, of course, private equity has still got lots of cash to spend. If interest rates start ticking up the way we’re expecting, that’ll have an impact on valuations, particularly across certain sectors.
Under KPMG’s UK deal advisory umbrella are five service lines: transaction services led by Nicola Longfield; corporate finance by Jonathan Boyers (a Corporate Finance Faculty board member); valuations by Caroline Bott; strategy by Hannah Twist; and infrastructure advisory by Gordon Shearer.
New thinking
Discovering it was possible to execute deals end to end remotely meant more flexibility in the approach to transactions. That’s a huge help to attracting a more diverse workforce and talent, Claydon says. However, “new business and building relationships is difficult remotely, as is getting a feel for market trends. You need to talk to lots of people. I think going back to expecting everyone to be in the office five days a week would be a massive missed opportunity. But junior team members need learning and development on the job. They can’t work totally from home – they need camaraderie.”
Some technical jobs can be done remotely and elements of due diligence, too. But to start a project, more significant in-person client contact is needed: “We’ll find a happy medium.” Claydon is sure that even with a more blended approach to working, partners will be capable of understanding individuals’ capabilities and ensuring that promotion processes remain rigorous and fair.
“When I joined KPMG, I didn’t think I’d be where I am now, or necessarily still at KPMG. You get your qualification , then think about what’s next. I chose KPMG because I liked the people I met. In the 30 years since, I’ve been fortunate. I was able to move around and get lots of different experience, both inside and outside the business in the UK and globally. It’s the variety that has kept me interested and learning new things every day.”
In short
Liz Claydon is head of deal advisory for KPMG UK. She joined the firm’s Leeds office in 1991 and trained as an ACA in audit. She began working in transaction services and moved to the firm’s London office in 1999. She spent a year on secondment with Diageo’s M&A team, and was promoted to partner in 2007. She was head of consumer and retail from 2012 to 2018, then head of UK life sciences, before being promoted to her current role in July 2019.
Making big changes
KPMG is recruiting to support its ‘growth transformation agenda’. In May 2021, the firm completed the sale of its restructuring practice to HIG Europe, now trading as Interpath Advisory. The sale of business was driven by changing regulation and increasing conflicts of interest. Nonetheless, it raised a reported £360m. Last month, KPMG entered into a joint venture with VC advisory firm Acceleris, to deliver fundraising and advisory services to businesses in the tech, life sciences and ESG-related sectors.
“That’s given us a war chest to invest back both into our core business and our strategy and ESG business,” says Claydon. KPMG is recruiting from industry, private equity houses and banks, as well as other big firms and boutiques. It’s expanding its data analytics team. Technology consultants are being trained in-house, offering opportunities for talent to be developed across the business.
“We want to become a more diverse business and we recognise that it’s not just about gender – it’s all aspects of diversity. It’s not one size fits all – everyone’s different. I’m really clear on why it’s better for us to be a diverse business. Not only is it just the right thing to do, it’s good for business. If you look at the results of businesses that are more diverse, the financial performance outstrips that of a non-diverse business, which is so compelling.
“Personally, there have been times when I’ve sat around board tables with 20 guys as the only female in the room and it doesn’t feel great or very inclusive. At times you definitely don’t feel like your voice is heard. It also doesn’t make for a richer experience or better problem solving, as diversity of thinking and bringing in different perspectives gets you better outcomes.” In her experience, flexibility in work-life balance is something she recognises as crucial to developing a career.