Can you offer the necessary solutions to your clients?
The stresses from economic pressures, post-Brexit and post-Covid trading has meant that many older business owners are increasingly considering their exit and requesting help from their accountants to do so.
This is confirmed by the responses from full-time corporate finance teams in mid-tier accountancy firms who stated that ‘they have never been busier’.
Those firms who have not yet rolled out a corporate finance offering could find themselves in an awkward position when clients need their help. Therefore the remaining mid-tier firms, who haven’t yet launched their own corporate finance service, will inevitably find they have to do so in 2024.
Despite the capacity issues for firms who are struggling to manage their client commitments for compliance work, the compelling reasons for going ahead and developing this specialised advisory offering next year are:
- Protect your Brand – Business owner clients will require assistance in the coming years with exit planning, finding buyers and due diligence. Clients will expect that a firm of a certain size will automatically be able to support them in all their business needs throughout their lifecycle and would be surprised to find that a firm cannot offer that in a systemised and experienced manner.
- Increased Profile – Corporate finance transactions provide occasions to write positive news items and potential achieve press coverage and recognition across your local business communities. Lawyers will be more keen to refer clients to you if they believe they have the chance of receiving an invitation to act for a corporate deal in return. Plus, quality businesses looking for a new accountant will review your full service offering before deciding whether you are appropriate and capable of supporting them throughout their business lifecycle.
- Growing Profitable Fees – Clients do not have the same reluctance to pay fees for corporate finance matters, when compared to their compliance requirements. They recognize that these services are both highly specialized and also vitally important to the future of their business and their personal futures. Therefore significant fees and profits are possible. In the past 12 months, the member firms of The Corporate Finance Network have increased their fees by 36%, after a 19.9% increase last year.
- Recruitment & Retention – The opportunity to work on corporate finance assignments will provide variety and future improved career prospects for your qualified members of the team, which will assist with recruitment and retaining value staff. In the past 12 months, member firms of The Corporate Finance Network reported that their headcount had increased by 8%.
- Consolidating Client Relationships – Building an acquisition strategy or exit planning are long-term assignments where you work very closely with your client. This allows you to build bonds and deepen relationships, which means that your client is highly unlikely to be tempted away by the offerings of another accountancy firm.
The risk-free way to launch corporate finance
Launching a corporate finance service does not necessarily require you to recruit expensive, experienced staff, nor incur lots of risk.
Membership of The Corporate Finance Network will provide you with a playbook to set up your service line, a toolkit for doing this work and the support and advice from the founder and Chairman, Kirsty McGregor and the wider member firms.
If you would like to understand what the potential fee opportunity is within your client base, please contact info@TheCFN.org.uk to arrange a call with the Chairman.
