The 2023 Annual Reception

The date and venue for this year’s Corporate Finance Faculty’s Annual Reception have been announced, and members can book their complimentary ticket now.

The networking event of the year for those working in corporate finance advisory will be held at The Honourable Lincoln’s Inn on Thursday 9 November 2023.

The Corporate Finance Faculty is the largest network of corporate finance professionals and its Annual Reception is the biggest networking event for its members – from major professional services, independent and specialist advisory firms, private equity and venture capital investment firms, infrastructure advisers, corporates, banks and alternative lenders, law firms’ corporate teams, brokers, consultants, policymakers and academic experts.

The evening will kick off with a champagne reception and will include the presentation of ICAEW’s prestigious Corporate Development Award to the listed company that has most successfully deployed M&A to enhance shareholder value over the previous year. The guest keynote speaker will be announced very soon.

In February this year, more than 300 guests packed into the Mansion House for the Corporate Finance Faculty’s 25th Anniversary Reception, which had been postponed from the previous November due to proposed industrial action by the RMT. 

The guests heard a speech from John Flint, chief executive of the UK Infrastructure Bank, and who now is a member of the Corporate Finance Faculty board. Lord Leigh of Hurley, the faculty’s first chairman, founder of Cavendish Corporate Finance and senior partner at finnCap Cavendish, presented RS Group with the Corporate Development Award.

The Annual Reception is free to Corporate Finance Faculty members and can be booked online. 

New faculty face

Katie Breadmore has joined ICAEW as senior services executive. She will manage Corporate Finance Faculty members’ enquiries and is also the first point of contact for members regarding events, membership fees and benefits. Breadmore previously worked for the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Earn-outs in deals

The Corporate Finance Faculty is holding a launch event for its ‘Earn-outs in Deals’ guideline in the Great Hall at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on Wednesday, 18 October 2023.

The guideline has been co-written by the faculty and Grant Thornton partner Patrick O’Brien and director Mark Cunanan. O’Brien is head of SPA, and Cunanan is head of SPA post-completion services at Grant Thornton.

The guideline will explain the crucial role that earn-out arrangements can play in helping to keep deals on track. It will look at earn-outs from the perspective of both acquirer and seller, as well as current trends in how the mechanisms are used to get deals over the line. The guideline will be peer-reviewed by the faculty’s technical committee.

The event is free to members and will run from 8.30-11am. Members can book their free place here.

Future of Capital Markets Summit

David Petrie, Head of ICAEW’s Corporate Finance Faculty, will join a panel session at the Future of UK Capital Markets Regulation Summit on Monday 25 September 2023, which will discuss to what extent proposed reforms to UK capital markets will achieve the desired objective of improving London’s position as a leading financial centre.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer corporate partner Tom Godwin, who specialises in capital markets, will moderate the panel. The other panellists are Mike Carter, head of platform at Innovate Finance; Conor Lawlor, managing director, capital markets and wholesale at UK Finance; and Claire Suddens-Spiers, head of equity advisory London at Rothschild and chair of the CityUK’s capital markets group.

During the day, there will be keynote addresses from Sir Douglas Flint CBE, chair of both abrdn and the UK government’s digitisation task force; Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange; Richard Knox, director, international financial services at HM Treasury; and Sarah Pritchard, executive director of supervision, policy and competition at the Financial Conduct Authority.

There will also be panels involving senior representatives of regulators, advisers, banks and advisory firms.

• Find more details about the Future of UK Capital Markets Regulation Summit. Corporate Finance Faculty members have been exclusively offered a 20% discount on the ticket price, which they can get using the code CM1ICAEW.

FCA Capital Market Reform consultation

The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) planned reforms to the public offers and admissions to trading regime, which will replace the prospectus regime, are now open for comment.

The areas of focus, where the FCA is likely to make future rules, include:

• Whether or how to set prospectus requirements for companies seeking admission of their securities to trading on the UK’s regulated markets
• Whether or not to set prospectus requirements on issuers raising further capital on UK regulated markets
• What forward-looking information issuers may include in prospectuses
• How the FCA should approach setting prospectus requirements for issuers seeking to admit securities to junior markets and multilateral trading facilities (MTFs)
• What rules should be set for firms that choose to operate a ‘public offer platform’ to allow companies to raise capital from investors without being admitted to a public market?

The FCA has published six engagement papers (so far), to which it has requested email responses by 29 September 2023:

• Admission to trading on a regulated market
• Further issuances of equity on regulated markets
• Protected forward-looking statements
• Non-equity securities
• The public offer platform
• Primary multilateral trading facilities

Katerina Joannou, ICAEW senior manager, capital markets policy, will be collating a response on behalf of the Corporate Finance Faculty members. Members can email their comments to Katerina.Joannou@icaew.com by 15 September for consideration.

The FCA has said it wants the new regime to “reshape regulation to better meet the needs of issuers and investors” and “strengthen the UK’s position in global wholesale markets”.

The new regime should “promote efficient and effective primary markets for companies accessing public markets for the first time and when raising further capital, and ensure investors have the right information to invest with confidence”.

After digesting the responses to this engagement process, the FCA will provide feedback on the key points raised, and will develop specific rule proposals, which it will consult on next year.