Buzzacott Valuations: one year in

Key achievements

So what was the plan for the year? Prior to the Valuations team’s inception, any valuation enquiries which came in were very ably handled by the Corporate Finance team’s Mergers & Acquisitions team – however, driven by a desire to both free up the M&A team’s time to focus on deal activity, as well as for the firm to more actively pursue valuation work in its own right, Matt made the call to speak with me and go about creating the specialist team that we have now. And so there was an existing pipeline of enquiries which naturally came through to land on my new desk.

However, having been a specialist valuer for a number of years, I was also very keen to go after more complex and technical work – and also leverage my own network to begin bringing in more work.

I’m very happy to say that, as a team, we have been very effective in being able to accomplish this to date. Amongst the highlights for me personally are the following:

• The valuation of Management sweet equity issues in support of two large deals
• Performing Buzzacott’s first valuations of intangible assets, utilising my own prior experience
• Performing valuations for clients ranging from SMEs holding a handful of properties through to US firms with $3bn of annual revenues, all within the one year

We have also been able to run a number of successful breakfast seminars, on valuation for non-valuers, tax valuations and the valuation of tech companies – all of which were well attended and more than adequately complemented by the delightful pastries on offer at our offices near St Pauls. For those interested in attending similar events in the future (I hear the coffee isn’t bad either) please do reach out to get added to mailing lists!

It’s not just been about the Valuations team operating for its own clients, however. Another hugely important part of our work has been in the way we have been able to complement the Buzzacott audit offering in their audit of fair values on balance sheets: by providing specialist support we feel we have been able to enhance the quality of Buzzacott audits and therefore the comfort that is able to be taken by our clients’ shareholders.

2024 and beyond

As our focus switches to 2024 there remain a number of things to be excited about. The arrival of two further new additions to the team is pencilled in for February and March, which (alongside Shriya’s eventual return) will see the team fully staffed for the foreseeable future.

We shall continue to seek out more complex and technical work, particularly with our senior team now in place. This of course will not mean any form of departure from any space in which we already perform valuations however: we are always keen to help out our clients with whatever valuation advice they may need.

And also, as I personally should be able to pull myself away from my desk more, I look forward to the opportunity to spend more time going out to meet with contacts and potential clients – to talk more about our offering, where we can help, and where the best place to get a coffee is near to everyone’s respective offices.

Wishing everyone a happy 2024!