Welcome to the Interim Newsletter 2011

We have put some thought into some of the subject matter and want to engage more with our audience, so we would welcome your feedback on this.

We want to build a long term business relationship with you and as the year progresses we will have things to discuss. With activity picking up, the key to our success is going to be speed to market, therefore it is critical that we stay in close contact.

Thank you for reading and we look forward to speaking with you over the course of the year.

Interim Update 2011

2011 started well with two consecutive quarters of increased levels of activity. The number of engagements within the finance functional discipline has increased and it has been interesting to see that demand is coming from a variety of sectors; media, educational businesses, business services as well as Private Equity backed companies. The signs are that this will at least continue, if not increase as we go through 2011.

Team Overview

Inside Track - Consultant Eye View

The market in Q1 2011 has been fairly mixed. Our main contingent and contracting business has been very busy with middle management roles at the controller and group reporting level.

Interim Finance Director, change and project work and more recently in March/April, general management and operational direction roles have been in demand. Many of our engagements have actually come through the businesses directly as opposed to enforced change by the investor community. Over the course of the year we believe that this balance will even out as the pace of corporate development and M&A increases and private equity companies start to spend some of the war chest they have been building up.

Clearly as intermediaries we always want more, however the upturn in activity is very much welcomed and the green shoots rhetoric that has been banded about for so long finally has some substance behind it.

Two insightful polls were released at the beginning of the year. The IPSOS Mori poll update, 2010 Annual survey IMA and the lengthy rival IIM survey. The number of roles completed is interesting at 891. The year 2010 was dominated in the private sector by Banking and Finance (37%) with Manufacturing (8%) and IT and Telecommunications (7%) the next two most represented sectors. Reasons for assignments were cited as Programme/Project Management (36%) Gap Management (21%) Business Improvement (19%) and Change/Transition Management (13%) and the average length of assignment was 148 billable days.

Although the Consensus is that 2010 was pretty quiet it was a lot busier than 2009. There appears to be an overwhelming need to sell the concept of Interim Management to clients to give them the understanding of the value proposition of true Interim management. This isn't helped by contractor agencies badging every temporary role that they pick up 'Interim'.

Forward View - Looking Ahead to Q3 and Q4

As an Executive business our outlook for the remainder of 2011 is extremely positive. The Executive search business is gaining pace with vertical market experts servicing a market that is largely overlooked by the wider recruitment market - the 'marzipan layer', as discussed in the press. Companies are addressing succession plan bottlenecks replacing or displacing senior finance heads into projects or programmes. There are a number of businesses restructuring or preparing to start global finance restructures across the board. Currently support services, manufacturing and SME companies appear to be the leaders. Media and advertising will come more to the forefront with growth plans and movement into new markets.

The Interim management business has also sharpened its focus with mid tier private equity and growing SME businesses. Finance transformation and projects around change within larger businesses are back on the agenda Large capital expenditure programmes that have been delayed during the downturn are becoming more critical to the success and profitability of companies across the European platform.

As mentioned before, speed to market and proactively making discreet approaches is going to be key throughout 2011. Private Equity deals seem to be in the papers everyday at the moment which is great news for us all.

Case Study: Finance Director - Preparation for Sale

My client - a leading innovative technology business were in the midst of due diligence and preparation for listing on the AIM market. The FD needed to take a leave of absence and we were able to provide an Interim CFO within 24hrs who had experience of preparing two businesses for listing on the AIM market. The team was stabilised and pre-listing the incumbent returned to work to manage the main event. We would like to invite our interim management community to share experiences that might help or benefit our wider community. Perhaps you have completed a challenging assignment or would like to pass on some commercially insightful advice to your peer group. Please feel free to contact me directly to discuss.

Are you linkedIn?

We have an active group on LinkedIn that we would like to invite you to join. We post regular debate points and it is an interesting forum to meet and get to know like minded finance executives and keep abreast of the latest issues interim managers are facing.

We would welcome your comments to this. Engaging much more with our community of career interim managers will be much more of a focus for us going through 2011.