UPDATE

New Corporate Finance Faculty member firm

The corporate finance team of independent accountancy and advisory firm Mercer & Hole has become a member of the Corporate Finance Faculty. 

In December 2024, Kevin Paget (1) joined Mercer & Hole as head of deal advisory to build out the firm’s corporate finance offering. He joined after eight years at Menzies as a corporate finance director, growing its deals service line. Prior to that he was a director and part owner of M&A advisory boutique SamCorp; group financial controller of AIM-listed grocery wholesaler Blueheath; and financial controller at publisher Northern & Shell.

There are currently four other members of the team: Tania Phillips (2), director and head of transaction services; corporate finance manager Vaishali Bhojwani (3); and assistant corporate finance managers Ben Birchall (4) and Kelvin Olusanya (5).

Phillips, whose focus is on financial due diligence projects and company valuations, joined Mercer & Hole two years ago from BDO, having previously worked for Shaw Gibbs, RSM and Crowe, where she trained as an ACA. 

The corporate finance team provides a wide range of services, primarily comprising deal advisory, financial due diligence, strategic planning, tax structuring and business valuations. It can also undertake forensic accounting, purchase price allocation and forecasting assignments, among other services. “We can provide valuable support to businesses at each stage of their life cycle,” said Phillips. “We take time to get to know our clients and understand their businesses, which allows us to present personalised solutions that enable future planning. We provide fresh strategic options and aim to make complex issues easy to understand.” 

Bhojwani and Birchall have both been with the firm five years, initially training as ACAs in the audit team. Olusanya trained as an ACA with Moore Kingston Smith, before joining Mercer & Hole in 2023 as a corporate finance executive.

“There are a lot of opportunities with Mercer & Hole audit and tax clients where I am now bringing a new service offering to the table,” said Paget. “Then we are looking at winning lead advisory and other corporate finance mandates from businesses that aren’t existing clients.”

The firm will be recruiting as the corporate finance service grows, Paget said. Mercer & Hole is a full-service advisory firm with clients in London and the South East, and it is part of an international alliance. As well as corporate finance advice, its services include audit, restructuring, company valuations, tax, financial and succession planning; and it has offices in London, St Albans, Rickmansworth and Milton Keynes.

The team is looking forward to taking part in faculty events. “Networking with other advisers is key to winning mandates and the faculty has proved it is a great forum for that,” Paget said. 

UPDATE

New board member

Yvette Allen, the Corporate Finance Faculty’s representative on the ICAEW Council, has rejoined the Corporate Finance Faculty board. She was chair of the Corporate Finance Faculty technical committee for five years. In September last year she retired from her position after 28 years as a corporate finance partner at Deloitte. She represents faculty and members’ interests at the Council, which works at a strategic level above the ICAEW board.

UPDATE

Faculty AGM

The Corporate Finance Faculty’s Annual General Meeting at Chartered Accountants’ Hall last month included a summary of the faculty’s plans for 2025 and 2026. The faculty’s Annual Review for 2024 was distributed at the meeting. It can be viewed here or order a copy by emailing Helen Jones.

UPDATE

Scale-ups in Liverpool 

ICAEW head of corporate finance David Petrie chaired a panel session last month at the Liverpool City Region Innovation Investment Summit for Scaling. The popular event is now in its fourth year and the theme of this year’s summit was the challenges of funding for scale-up and high-tech businesses. 

It was hosted by Sci-Tech Daresbury at its science park in Cheshire. 

Other speakers included:

• Marc D’Abbadie, head of venture and executive director, River Capital;
• Marion Bernard, chief innovate officer, Northern Gritstone;
• Dr Susanne Coles, director Innovate UK Loans, and deputy director Innovation Finance Ecosystem;
• Jess Jackson, investment manager, Praetura Ventures; and
• Steve Stuart, chair LYVA Lab.

CONSULTATION

Talk about AIM

The London Stock Exchange has published a Discussion Paper, Shaping the Future of AIM. It is seeking “market engagement to support the development of AIM” and is looking for the views of companies, investors and advisers. The faculty will be submitting a response on behalf of members and if any members would like their views incorporated to the faculty response, comment should be submitted to ICAEW corporate finance senior manager Katerina Joannou by 11 June 2025. Members can respond individually, by emailing AIM by 16 June 2025. View the paper here.

RESPONSE

NWF call for evidence

The Corporate Finance Faculty has submitted a comment on behalf of ICAEW in response to the Treasury Committee’s call for evidence on the National Wealth Fund (NWF).

The key points of the submission – which incorporated members’ views and was prepared by ICAEW corporate finance senior manager, Katerina Joannou, and Martin Wheatcroft, public sector adviser to ICAEW – were:

• While recognising that the NWF has the potential to mobilise private investment and stimulate economic growth, to be successful it will require a clear mission, effective execution, and appetite for risk.
• The NWF must have executive and operational independence from HM Treasury.
• The NWF should have the discretion to consider investment in multi-dimension cases that enable or result in improvements in priority sectors it has been allotted, even when those sectors are not the primary intended beneficiary of a specific investment.
• The focus of the NWF on investment in late-stage development, construction and commercialisation means it will not necessarily be able to address the need for higher-risk early-stage funding essential to driving economic growth. The government should consider whether the NWF and the British Business Bank should offer venture debt for early-stage businesses in critical industries that struggle to obtain equity finance.
• Some member experience of the UK Infrastructure Bank suggests there is a need to improve the speed of execution if the NWF is to be effective.
• The NWF must avoid becoming a ‘lender of last resort’ if it is to fulfil its mission of crowding in private finance to support viable projects.
• A review of parts of the Green Book relating to discount rates will improve the guidance to departments on how they should review and evaluate the financing of major projects.

RESPONSE

Infrastructure private finance

The faculty and ICAEW private sector team have submitted a response to the Public Accounts Committee’s call for evidence on the government’s use of private finance for infrastructure, on behalf of Corporate Finance Faculty members and ICAEW.

The response highlighted three areas requiring urgent remediation in order to deliver on the planned 10-year infrastructure strategy and prepare for PFI contracts due to expire. The government should:

• build up a credible and affordable infrastructure pipeline with balanced sharing of risk;
• enable access by public bodies to specialist expertise; and
• provide new guidance for evaluating the use of private finance.

The response further suggests that the newly established body, the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, should be responsible for policy and creating a framework for using private finance to deliver the government’s infrastructure strategy. 

The recommendations also suggest the government should not seek ‘off-balance sheet’ treatment for public-private partnerships, as previous experience suggests that such an approach makes it difficult to allocate risk appropriately between taxpayers and private investors.

FUTURE EVENTS

Diary dates

1 July

ICAEW has updated its Code of Ethics, as approved by the Council in March, following amendments to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) Code of Ethics. The new code comes into effect from 1 July 2025 and can be viewed here.

10 September

The Corporate Finance Faculty’s Commercial Due Diligence Guideline, co-authored by KPMG and Luminii, will be launched at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on 10 September 2025.

13 November

The Corporate Finance faculty’s Annual Reception will be held at Goldsmiths’ Hall on 13 November. Speakers are to be finalised. The event will include the presentation of the faculty’s prestigious Corporate Development Award, and prizes for the highest-performing students in the ICAEW Corporate Finance qualification exams.

10 December

The launch of the Corporate Finance Faculty’s Management Due Diligence Guideline, authored by Deloitte, will be in the Great Hall at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on 10 December 2025.