Articles
A Day in the Life of a Corporate Financier
ICON 66, March 2009
6:15 am
Up at the crack of dawn to get a quick gym session in before the kids wake up! A 20 minute set on the rowing machine is the perfect way to clear my head before I have to start preparing mentally for the day.
7:30 am
Back home for a quick shower and to feed the kids their cereals. I need a proper breakfast to keep me going through the day and it’s nice to spend time chatting with Ella (4), Jack (2) and baby Angus about their “plans” for the day.
8:30 am
Straight onto the phones for a conference call with a Korean electronics manufacturer (N.B. 8 hours time difference). We are running a sale process for a display technology client of ours and the Koreans are very interested and can offer a global distribution network for our client’s product. The call is fairly slow due to the language differences (fortunately their English is a lot better than my Korean!) but we reach an agreement for them to perform further technical due diligence and a market review.
9:30 am
Make a number of calls to VCs about a Telco software client looking for £2million funding. The investment opportunity is very exciting given that their disruptive technology app addresses the huge global Telco OSS (Operations Support Systems) market. We’ve specifically targeted VCs we know have a strong understanding of this specific market, ensuring that we fast track our client to the key dealmakers in the sector. We currently have 3 offers on the table with a fairly broad range of valuations but also differing deal structures. The offer with the highest headline valuation actually has a number of fairly onerous clauses and I point out to our client that the best valuation does not always translate into the best deal.
10:30 am
A meeting with a VC. One of our clients has a clever piece of web conferencing technology using an advanced Web 2.0 software platform. They are growing rapidly (doubling subscriber numbers every 3 months), the business model is highly scalable and they have a strong management team so it ticks all the right boxes for investors. The VC has brought in a sector specialist from their Paris office for the meeting and very soon the PowerPoint presentation is tossed aside and the specialist and our CEO have a highly animated conversation. We finish the meeting with a strong commitment from the VC to take the proposal to the next stage.
12:45 pm
Nip into the closest sushi restaurant for something quick and healthy. I’m in training for a 24-hour mountain bike sponsored charity event in a couple of weeks time and am enjoying carb-loading.
2:00 pm
An engagement pitch with a dynamic tech start-up involved in the High Performance Computing sector. They have a clear point of differentiation in the highly efficient interconnect switches they have prototyped as well as an impressive management team. The company has previously raised an initial seed round from Angels and is now looking for a VC investor to take the proposition to the next level. They need £6m to develop their first chip and to invest in a global sales operation. I’m confident about the pitch I already have an ideal VC target list in mind given that ICON raised funds for a similar business only a year ago, and one of the most important factors in our industry is having relevant deal experience. We propose a fee structure which they are pleasantly surprised to hear is mostly contingent on successfully raising funds.
4:00 pm
Preparatory call with a sale mandate client and their lawyers. We’re in final stages of a deal with the preferred acquirer, a Silicon Valley-based software business, so we need to discuss a number of outstanding issues over the legals. The deal structure is fairly complex and whilst the majority of the consideration is cash up-front, management will also receive shares in the acquirer, plus there’s an Earn Out which I’m keen to tighten up in order to maximise the return to my client.
5:00 pm
Jump into the main conference call with the acquirer. Their lawyers are proving to be fairly sticky on a number of issues which we are not prepared to move on so I’ve advised the client to hold firm, and ultimately the aquirer’s CEO needs to step in to accept our position. After a fair bit of huffing and puffing we seem to have made real progress on the key issues, and the talk at the end of the call is very positive with a discussion on when and how the completion will take place. We also advise how the deal should be announced to staff to minimise any potential fall-out.
7.30pm
Manage to drop in to the local Pitcher & Piano for ‘Last Thursday’ drinks, a monthly get-together for the corporate finance community. The talk swiftly shifts from the pros and cons of Liquidation Preference clauses to where everyone wants to go for a curry. It’s tempting but I have an early start with VCs in Oxford the next day and a briefcase full of new business plans to review on the way so I make my excuses and head home before I can be persuaded otherwise.
