An anonymised case description from an actual interim CFO mandate. Sector, scale and type of shareholder are stated; the company name is not. All details come from the mandate description on the interim CFO references page. Results are not broken down by date there, so they are given here for the mandate as a whole.
Starting position
A B2B software company with more than 500 employees and a group of nine entities, owned by a private equity fund. The finance department had fifteen people. Two programmes were running at the same time: a restructuring, and preparation of a sale process.
That combination is the most demanding thing a finance function can be asked to carry. A restructuring calls for short-term control and negotiating capacity; exit preparation calls for clean, consolidated, explainable figures over several years. The two pull in opposite directions.
Brief
Interim CFO with operational responsibility for the finance department. Mandate type: exit preparation and restructuring.
Scope
- Operational responsibility for a finance department of fifteen
- Producing a financial factbook together with a Big Four firm
- Introducing consolidation of nine entities in LucaNet
- Negotiating and implementing a restructuring
- Preparing the company for the exit process
Approach
Consolidation was the precondition for everything else. Without a reliable set of group accounts there is neither a financial factbook nor a negotiable basis in a restructuring. Bringing nine entities into one consolidation system means harmonising charts of accounts, reconciling intercompany relationships and setting a closing calendar that every entity actually keeps.
The financial factbook was built on top of that, together with a Big Four firm — the structured presentation of the financial numbers in the way a buyer would examine them. What belongs in such a document, and how it differs from a full vendor due diligence, is set out in vendor due diligence or financial factbook.
The restructuring ran in parallel and was negotiated and implemented. How finance works in that situation — starting with the 13-week cash flow forecast — is described in finance in a restructuring.
Result
- Financial factbook produced together with a Big Four firm
- Consolidation of nine entities introduced in LucaNet
- Restructuring negotiated and implemented
- Company prepared for the exit process
Duration
Eight months, April to November 2023.
Does this match your situation?
Where a sale process is coming and the numbers sit across several entities, the lead time decides the outcome. The timetable is in exit readiness, the other side's review areas in financial due diligence: what buyers check, and the price arithmetic in purchase price mechanics.
All twelve mandates at a glance: interim CFO references. Scope of work for investors: private equity.
