Associate Corporate Finance - Richard Hopkins Burton

Well, it turns out that accounting isn’t that boring after all. Although those considering audit might want to take a careful look at what’s involved. 

Who are you and what do you do?

What attracted you to this career?

Probably two main reasons, firstly I have always been interested in mergers and acquisitions of businesses particularly private equity buyouts because that is what I did my dissertation at university.  So the chance to work in that kind of field was always a good opportunity for me and second one was the training I knew I was going to receive, because I am being put through my chartered accountant qualification over three years and is probably the most highly regarded qualification in basis that you can get in the world. But what has surprised me since I joined is the extra training and development I have got on top of my formal qualification and training courses and things.

What is transaction services?

Transaction services, we provide services to our clients who are involved in a transaction for a deal, a merger or acquisition of a business.  What we do is provide due diligence for them, which is to go into the target business look it over and do a thorough detailed financial analysis, it's past performance, it's current financial position and it's forecast going forward, and provide a report to our client so they can use this information gathered to make a decision on whether they are going to invest or whether they are going to change the price they are going to pay for the business.

What's the difference between transactions services and investment banking?

It is pretty much the same role really but we specialise on the mid market acquisitions, whereas the investment banks do a larger transactions.

How is Corporate Finance structured?

At the Deloitte corporate services, there is advisory, transaction services and re-organisation services. Advisory is involved in advising businesses on what they should do and how they should do it in terms of the company they should buy and how they should raise the finances to buy that business.  Transaction services is actually involved in the day to day transaction, they will go into the target business and do an in depth analysis of it and report back to the client, telling them they should pay more or less for it or they should scrap the idea completely.  Reorganisation services, they advise businesses who are struggling financially, so maybe advise them on a turn around strategy or if they are really bad take them into administration.

What do you do on a typical day?

There is not really a typical day, but probably three different typical days I would have.  One being if I am out on site at a target site, to meet the management to have meetings with them to gather as much information as I can and doing some analysis on that information out at the clients site; I might go and visit our actual client to discuss how the progress of the transaction is going or I might be in the office doing all the analysis on all the information gathered putting it all together, trying to draw some meaning from it and trying to draw up the report that we are going to give to our client, finally there are times when you are unassigned between projects for a short space of time when you can catch up on your admin or book yourself on a training course.

Describe the process of your work?

I think if you were approached by a potential client who wanted some due diligence service from us, the first thing we have to do is a lot of up front legal and conflict checking to make sure this engagement is right for us and make sure there is no conflict of interest and things like that, so there is a lot of upfront paperwork to do.  Then what I would normally do is go in to the target business go and meet the management, have a tour of the operations, just to get a good understanding of what the business is, what market it works in, it's different clients it has and suppliers, just get a real good understanding of the business.  Then we can start to look at the numbers and get a lot of the information from the management accounts and things like that to start to do the analysis and putting together the report we give to our client so they can base a decision on their investment.

Who do you liaise with on a daily basis?

One of the quite rewarding elements of working on a transaction or deal is you have to coordinate different relationships so you have us, the accountants doing the diligence, then you have a team of lawyers working for the client, and lawyers working for the target and you would have the advisers from another corporate finance team.  You have got to coordinate the transaction between yourselves so there is a lot of interaction between yourselves and different companies and different teams.

What are the best bits about your job?

I think the best think I probably enjoy about my job is really getting stuck into a business we can turn up on the first day and within two weeks we have to know that business inside out and we have to understand what makes it tick and the systems within it.  Each time you go to a new transaction it is a new business so a different experience every time and you get to look at all different aspects of the business and how it all fits together rather than having to see just one small part of it. 

What are the worst bits about your job?

One of the most frustrating things about the job is sometimes you have to wait for things to happen before you can do your actual job, so you have to wait for information from the management team to get back to you before you can start your business.  So it can be a frustrating period because you just want to get stuck in and you have to wait for the lawyers to come back with some legal documentation and you are just sitting around waiting for it and all of a sudden it all comes back at the same time and you are just snowed under, so that can be quite frustrating and just something you have to deal with so you plan your way around it.

What has been your greatest achievement?

A couple of months ago I won an award for an Outstanding Contribution Award for a piece of work I did on a banking client of ours, a FTSE 100 retail bank.  Because I had done banking at university I had a bit of knowledge around the industry and I was able to go in there and be a useful part of the team.  It was one of my first engagements so I did as best as I could and used my knowledge and I think my hard work was recognised.  So I got this award and it was good to be recognised for my hard work and the cash prize that went with that as well was very welcome.

Any regrets?

Like you say I have only just started really but one think I have picked up is always ask a lot of questions, keep asking and asking questions until you are very clear about what it is they want you to do rather than jump in here and give it your best shot and you always then have to go back and change it because you didn't quite understand what they wanted of you, so don't be afraid to ask questions.

What is the pay like?

In terms of salary I can't really complain, in comparison to my other friends that I went to university with I am fairly well paid, but I think the most important thing about the salary is it goes up quite a lot quite quickly, for example when you qualify after three years, it pretty much doubles, so it is quite a jump as you go up the ladder. In comparison to trainee lawyers, trainee bankers, things like that, I think it compares fairly well.

Are there any perks?

We get an operations package as part of our benefits, basically a lump of money which you can spend on whatever you want from a list of things, like health care, child care, company car, you can buy extra holidays, or you can just take the cash. Again as you move up the career ladder you get more and more of a pool to spend every year.

What is the working environment like?

I think because we are a professional services firm the offices are fairly formal and fairly professional but by no means boring and dull, it is quite an open plan office so everyone is always at everyone else's desk having a good chin wag and things like that.    There is a good mix of characters, a good mix of ages and sexes, so it is a good environment to be in there is always a laugh to be had.  One of the things about joining a firm like Deloitte is they take so many graduates at the same time so in my office there was 50 graduates who joined at the same time, so you have got an instant peer group and so many people you can make friends with straight away.  It makes it easier to settle in and when you do settle in it makes it a lot of fun.

Is the Industry male dominated?

I wouldn't say it was male dominated at all really.  In my team there are more men that women but there is a big contingent of women in our team, at all level really right up to director level.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

The working hours do vary to be honest, there are some days when you have to work very long hours but there are some when you can have a chilled out day.  I think it depends on which project you are working on, what stage of the project is and some days towards the end of the project you might need to work into the night, you might have to work weekends but as I say when the project is finished, you might have a week of fairly chilled out office days to catch up on your admin and try and recuperate so there are hard times but not all of the time, it is probably the exception not the rule.  I would say an average day would be 9 until 6 and an easy day 9 until 5 and a long day can be a lot longer than that.

Is there much in the way of travel?

Again it is quite mixed in terms of how much I travel by the different projects I am on.  One particular project you might have to go out to meet the management for a period of a week or two, and might be quite a long way away in the UK or even abroad, which would involve staying away in hotels, but on other projects you can do most of it from the office because it might be sensitive project where you don't want people to know about it so we do a lot of our work from the office.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

I would say the bulk of corporate finance in the UK is in London and it the biggest corporate finance centre in the world, but throughout the UK probably in the bigger cities, they have got offices there and corporate finance offices.  For example I work in the Birmingham office and in Birmingham there is a big corporate finance community, there are a lot of deals going off all the time, and some quite large ones.

How did you get into your job?

I started off doing a business degree at university and decided I was quite interested in finance so I stayed on to do a Masers degree in banking and finance.  When I finished that I went straight into corporate finance at Deloitte.

What's the application process like?

To get into Deloitte you first have to do an online application form and psychometric tests and if you get passed that you get called in for a first interview.  If you are successful at that stage you get called into a final second interview at which stage you have to do an individual exercise as well where you do a bit of analysis on a business and then present your findings to your pretend boss. 

I can remember my interviews quite well they weren't too long ago, so the whole process sounds quite daunting, it is really not, everyone is really friendly and they give you a lot of help along the way and they help you prepare for your interviews.

What are the key skills required for your job?

I think you have to be good with people, you have to communicate effectively and confidently and it is all about the way you come across to people and to your clients and building relations with them.  Then also the simple things like computer skills and things like that because we use it every day so a basic understanding is good.

Do you have to be very numeric?

There are a lot of numbers, although we are looking at the business overall, we are looking at the finances of the business overall so a lot of in depth financial analysis of them so a grasp of numbers is required.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

I would say it is really important to speak to someone in finance, whether it is though one of your friends, just to have a conversation and find out what each career will entail and how they interact with each other and they can also tell you things like the general industry and the major issues at the moment just that can help you prepare your application form and to be prepared before your interview.

Can you start a Corporate Finance career client side?

I guess it would be hard to start on the client’s side because a lot of the jobs working in industry of corporate finance would be to work maybe as FD or CFO or something like that and oversee the merging operations of the business.  You would need to work your way up in your career and get a grounding in corporate finance and then move across rather than the other way around.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

One of the good things about my job is the career development is really structured.  You start off as an associate as a graduate for the first three years while you qualify, then once you are qualified you move up to assistant manager and then to manager, then to assistant director and then director and partner.  Then there is sort of two or three years between promotions so we have always got something to work towards and the training to gain you skills you need for the next level to help you do that.

How does the role change over time?

The further towards the bottom you are, you do a lot more technical analysis and report writing and things like that.  As you move up it is about gaining new work and engagements and building relationships with the clients rather than doing the ground work.

Where do you see the industry going?

I would say it was a quite difficult time in corporate finance with the credit crunch but it is not all negative, particularly the mid markets, they don't require so much debt involved in the transactions and have really good growth areas there, so perhaps the professional services firms that concentrate on the mid market sector, that is somewhere you can get in there and grow quite quickly.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

I think that is what is good about the ACA qualification they put you through, once you qualify as a chartered accountant, so many different doors open up to you.  You can obviously stay in practice, try and make partner that way or you could got into industry and run the finance department of a company in the FTSE 100 or something like that.  Or you could go and work for a bank or a private equity firm there are literally so many things you can do, it is one of the major benefits of starting our career with an ACA.

A lot of people start off in audit and get an ACA and move into a corporate finance practice of a firm like Deloitte, but starting off in corporate finance gives you a head start, so when you qualify you have already got three years experience so at that point you can start to move on quickly, whether you stay at the firm or go to another bank or something like that.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

I guess in preparation for interviews if you were trying to find something to read to gen you up on finance issues, what I read was the Financial Times, it is a really easy way to get information a really cheap way as well.  I check the website everyday just read up on the major issues things that are going on in the business and financial world and one of the good things they do is an email that does a daily summary of all the major stories, so if you don't have time to read the whole paper, just read the key summaries, just gives you a heads up on what is happening.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I think it is hard to imagine because I love my job so much so but I guess I would apply to maybe a bank and gone to another graduate scheme or another big company something like that.