UPDATES

Luminii joins faculty

The latest firm to join the ICAEW Corporate Finance Faculty is Luminii Consulting. The advisory firm offers strategy consulting, commercial due diligence (CDD) and value creation advice to clients, which include global corporates and SMEs, private equity and venture capital firms, and their portfolio companies.

CEO Lushani Kodituwakku (above) founded Luminii seven years ago. Its consultants offer industry-specific specialist research and analysis to lead and support strategic growth plans and investment decisions, assisting clients in creating value and managing risk. 

The firm has two offices, in London and Manchester. Luminii Consulting won the award for CDD provider of the year at the annual 2023 Real Deals Private Equity Awards.

Luminii advises across several sectors including technology, media and telecoms; B2B products and services; manufacturing; industrial; retail and online retail; healthcare; hotels and leisure; property; construction; education; energy; leasing; and financial services. 

Before setting up Luminii in 2017, Kodituwakku established and led the strategy and CDD practice at Grant Thornton UK. She also played a pivotal role in setting up the UK operations for Neovian Partners, a French consultancy, and served as its UK managing partner. Prior to this, she was a director at PMSI consulting and worked for the strategy teams at KPMG and Frost & Sullivan. 

To date she has advised more than 500 businesses on growth and investment strategies in the UK, Europe, and US. 

In 2023, she was named CEO of the Year by Market Research and Intelligence in the UK, and in March this year was presented with the Women in Business/Entrepreneurship Award at the Women in Management UK Professional and Career Women Awards at the House of Lords.

On joining the faculty, Kodituwakku said: “We are delighted to join ICAEW’s Corporate Finance Faculty as a corporate member. 

“We look forward to contributing towards the faculty’s various initiatives on governance, such as providing technical input into the planned Commercial Due Diligence guidelines and networking with the wider membership, as well as developing our team members through the faculty’s specialist qualifications.” 

The other members of the senior management team include associate directors Ioana Nobel, Sam Thompson, Tina Neave, Shiran Liyanage and Ethan Hall. Nobel previously worked for PwC and Kaiser Associates and, immediately before joining Luminii, in Grant Thornton’s commercial due diligence team. 

Thompson worked with Kodituwakku for a decade, starting with Neovian Partners before joining Luminii. Neave previously worked in commercial due diligence for PMSI Consulting, Armstrong Consulting Services and Coleago Consulting, and before that spent 10 years with Vodafone and eight with Thorn EMI.

Liyanage has founded or worked in the early stages of eight tech start-ups and held senior positions at Thomson Reuters and Virgin.

New technical committee members

Katherine Broadhurst (1) and Kathryn Mansell (2) have joined the ICAEW Corporate Finance Faculty technical committee. Broadhurst is a corporate finance partner at Azets. Based in Cardiff, she leads the team in south Wales and the South West. She joined Azets six years ago from Broomfield & Alexander, also based in Cardiff, where she started her career, trained as an ACA and spent 17 years. 

Mansell is an associate director in South West-based Old Mill’s corporate finance team. She trained with the firm as an ACA and has been with it for nine years. She is also an ICAEW South West network board member.

Earlier this year, EY’s Chris Jarvill took over from Yvette Allen as chair of the technical committee.

Jon Moulton and Michael Izza honoured

Former faculty board member and regular Corporate Financier columnist Jon Moulton (1) and former ICAEW CEO Michael Izza (2) received CBEs in the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours.

Moulton, who stepped down from the Corporate Finance Faculty board earlier this year after 13 years’ service, received his CBE for charitable services. Through his charitable trust, he has donated £52m to healthcare research over 20 years, funding more than 160 clinical trials in a range of therapy areas, including women’s health, oncology and multiple sclerosis. In typical style, Moulton told Corporate Financier: “It was very nice to get it.”

Izza, who retired in April this year after 18 years as CEO (and was succeeded by Alan Vallance, see here), received his CBE for services to accounting, audit and sustainability. He said: “It was a huge privilege to represent my profession as ICAEW chief executive for so many years and I am proud of what we achieved together, especially with regard to the vital role that chartered accountants will play in the transition to sustainable economies around the world.”

CONSULATIONS

FCA calls for comments

The FCA has launched a consultation on a new public offers and admission to trading regulations regime, which aims to help companies make public offers of securities to investors, including retail consumers. The consultation can be found here.

The FCA is also consulting on a new regime for public offer platforms, which aims to allow advisory firms to help companies make public offers of securities to investors. This can be found here.

The deadline for comments on both consultations is 18 October 2024. If members wish to contribute to the faculty’s response, please send comments to Katerina Joannou by 30 September.

DATES FOR THE DIARY

D&I in corporate finance

The Corporate Finance Faculty is holding the second in its series of ‘Building a career in corporate finance and investments’ networking events.

Following the success of the inaugural event held earlier this year, the theme of this one is diversity and inclusion (D&I) in corporate finance. It will be held at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on 12 September 2024, starting at 18:00. 

Keeley Woodley, the first woman to be head of corporate finance at Grant Thornton, will give an introductory speech. This will be followed by a panel discussion with Katherine Broadhurst, partner and head of corporate finance for the South West and Wales at Azets, (and new technical committee member); Vincent Egunlae, investment banking analyst at Houlihan Lokey; Cara Haffey, PwC corporate finance partner, head of manufacturing and automotive and deal leader for the UK regions; and Philip Olagunju, head of corporate finance at Cambridge-based PEM Corporate Finance. 

After the panel discussion, there will be an opportunity for networking. The event will run until 20:00. Places can be booked here.

Financial due diligence guide launch

The Corporate Finance Faculty’s latest guideline on financial due diligence, written by PwC and the faculty and reviewed by the technical committee, will be launched on 22 October 2024 at Chartered Accountants’ Hall. The event will start at 08:30 and involve a panel discussion followed by networking. It will run until 11:00 and places can be booked here.

UK Infrastructure Forum 

The Corporate Finance Faculty and the UK Infrastructure Bank’s ‘Infrastructure Forum for Investors and Advisers with UKIB’ will be held at the Marriott hotel in Leeds on 5 November 2024.

As well as keynote speeches, an expert panel will explore where the UK is likely to see infrastructure investment in the near and longer term, and the challenges in delivering that investment.

John Flint, chief executive officer of the UK Infrastructure Bank and former group CEO of HSBC, will give the keynote speech. The panel discussion will feature:

• Emily Sidhu, managing director of banking and investments, UK Infrastructure Bank;
• Louise Shaw, EY partner, energy and infrastructure corporate finance;
• Richard Goodfellow, head of infrastructure, projects and energy group, Addleshaw Goddard;
• Daniel Grosvenor, partner and head of government and infrastructure and global financial advisory lead for power and utilities, Deloitte; and
• James Pincus, partner and head of PwCs UK energy transition and infrastructure lead advisory team.

The event will be of interest to infrastructure investors and advisers, as well as corporate finance advisers based in Yorkshire and the north-east of England, as well as from across the UK. 

The free event will run until 12:30. Registration and networking will start at 09:00, with the first speech at 10:00, followed by a panel discussion featuring infrastructure advisory and investment experts. 

Places can be booked here.

2024 Annual Reception

The Corporate Finance Faculty’s Annual Reception will be held on Wednesday 13 November 2024, at Fishmongers’ Hall in the City of London.

The guest speaker this year will be Lord Clement-Jones CBE, former DLA Piper managing partner, Liberal democratic peer and co-founder and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence. He will give an insightful speech on how AI will impact corporate finance.

There will also be the Corporate Development Award, prizes for Corporate Finance Diploma students and a champagne reception, as well as networking opportunities. Free to Corporate Finance Faculty members, places can be booked here.