Financial advisory for the decisions that set the value of the business for the next five years, not the next quarter.
Focaly works with founders, executives and investors on the decisions that carry the most weight: how growth is funded, what the business is worth, which deals are worth doing, and where capital is quietly being wasted.
Most companies do not have a revenue problem. They have a capital allocation problem.
Growth is rarely limited by ideas. It is limited by where the money goes, what it costs, and how quickly it comes back. We work on the small number of financial decisions that determine whether a business compounds or simply stays busy.
- Financial strategy tied to the business plan, not built in a spreadsheet vacuum
- Funding structured around the cost of capital and the control you want to keep
- Valuation grounded in the drivers a buyer or investor will actually test
- Performance improvement found in margin and working capital, not only in sales
- Risk assessed before it becomes a covenant breach or a cash crisis
Eight areas of advisory, engaged together or one at a time.
Engagements are usually triggered by an event: a raise, a deal, a covenant, a board question. We scope to that event, then widen only if the diagnosis calls for it.
Financial strategy and advisory
The financial architecture behind the business plan: where capital is deployed, what return it must earn, and how the numbers behave under pressure.
- Financial planning and integrated modelling
- Capital allocation framework
- Scenario and sensitivity analysis
- Board and management reporting design
Capital planning and funding strategy
How much capital the plan actually needs, in what form, on what terms, and what each option costs in dilution, control and covenants.
- Funding requirement and runway analysis
- Debt, equity and hybrid structure options
- Cost of capital and dilution modelling
- Lender and investor materials
Mergers and acquisitions advisory
Support across the transaction, from deciding whether the deal is worth doing to making sure the value survives the integration.
- Acquisition strategy and target screening
- Commercial and financial due diligence support
- Deal structuring and negotiation input
- Post merger integration planning
Business valuation and financial assessment
An evidenced view of what the business is worth, and, more usefully, of the handful of drivers that move that number most.
- Valuation analysis across recognised methods
- Value driver and sensitivity mapping
- Quality of earnings review
- Independent assessment for boards and shareholders
Investment readiness and growth planning
Getting the numbers, the narrative and the data room to a standard that survives the questions a serious investor will ask.
- Investor narrative and equity story
- Financial model and assumption review
- Data room preparation and gap closing
- Diligence readiness assessment
Financial performance improvement
Margin, pricing, cost base and working capital. The value that already exists inside the business and is currently leaking out of it.
- Margin and profitability analysis
- Pricing and unit economics review
- Cost base and overhead assessment
- Working capital and cash conversion
Risk assessment and financial optimisation
Finding the exposures that turn a difficult quarter into an existential one, and reducing them while there is still room to act.
- Cash flow and liquidity stress testing
- Concentration and counterparty risk review
- Covenant and debt structure analysis
- Controls and financial governance
Corporate restructuring and transformation
Reshaping the group, the balance sheet or the operating model when the current structure is holding the business back.
- Group and entity structure review
- Balance sheet and debt restructuring options
- Carve out, divestment and wind down analysis
- Turnaround and stabilisation planning
Four questions every financial decision has to survive.
A recommendation that cannot answer all four is an opinion. We work the questions in order, and we show the evidence behind each one.
Do the numbers say what we think they say?
Before any recommendation, the underlying data is tested. Most flawed financial decisions start with a figure nobody reconciled.
What does this earn, and by when?
Every use of capital is compared against the alternatives, including the alternative of doing nothing and holding the cash.
What happens if we are wrong?
The plan is stressed against the scenarios that actually threaten it, so the decision is made with the downside visible rather than assumed away.
Does this make the business worth more?
Every material decision is traced back to enterprise value. Activity that does not move a value driver is activity, not strategy.
What a corporate finance engagement should change.
Objectives are agreed at the start of every engagement. These are the three areas the work is designed to move.
Capital efficiency
Every euro deployed against a return that has been argued for, rather than absorbed by whichever budget shouted loudest.
Enterprise value
A business built around the drivers that a buyer or investor will pay for, and defensible when they test them.
Decision confidence
A leadership team that can explain, in plain language, why the money is going where it is going.
How a corporate finance engagement runs.
The same four phases apply whether the work is a short valuation review or a full transaction. Only the depth and the timeline change.
Diagnose
We establish the true financial position: the numbers, the drivers, the risks and the questions management has not yet asked.
Model
The plan is built into an integrated model, stress tested against the scenarios that matter, and the options are laid out with their trade offs.
Advise
A clear recommendation with the reasoning attached, presented so a board can interrogate it rather than simply approve it.
Execute
Support through the raise, the deal or the restructuring, and afterwards through the reporting that proves whether it worked.
The cheapest capital is rarely the capital that costs the least.
Every funding option carries a price beyond the interest rate: dilution, covenants, board seats, reporting obligations, and the strategic freedom you give up to get the money. We model the full cost of each route, including the one where you fund growth from operations and take longer to get there.
- Debt, equity and hybrid compared honestly
- Dilution and control modelled explicitly
- Covenants read before they are signed
- Runway understood, not estimated
A valuation is only useful if it tells you what to do on Monday.
The number matters, but the drivers behind it matter more. We identify which levers move enterprise value most in your specific business, whether that is customer concentration, margin quality, recurring revenue or the founder's own indispensability, and then we build the plan that improves them before anyone puts the business under diligence.
- Valuation with its assumptions exposed
- The handful of drivers that matter
- Diligence weaknesses found early
- A plan to raise the number, not just report it
Businesses rarely fail from a bad year. They fail from a bad month with no cash.
Profit is an opinion, cash is a fact, and the gap between the two is where most companies get caught. We stress the plan against the scenarios that genuinely threaten it, examine concentration and covenant exposure, and put the early warning indicators in place while there is still room to act on them.
- Cash flow stressed, not assumed
- Concentration risk surfaced
- Covenant headroom monitored
- Early warning indicators in place
Good financial advice is uncomfortable more often than it is flattering. That is what makes it worth paying for.
A model that tells the board what it hoped to hear.
Assumptions are set to make the plan work, the downside case is quietly optimistic, and the risk nobody wanted to raise is the one that eventually arrives. The analysis was never wrong. It was simply never tested.
Show the assumptions. Then attack them.
We make every assumption visible, stress the plan against the scenarios management would rather not discuss, and give a recommendation with its reasoning attached. If the honest answer is that the deal should not happen, that is the answer you get.
Operators, not spectators
Focaly is run by people who own and operate businesses across construction, legal advisory and media. The advice is written by people who have had to live with the consequences of it.
Independent of the outcome
Our fee does not depend on you doing the deal, taking the money or approving the plan. That is the only way advice stays worth listening to.
Plain language, always
Models, memos and board papers written to be understood by the people who have to decide, not to impress the people who built them.
Built for businesses facing a decision they cannot take back.
A raise, an acquisition, a restructuring or an exit. Decisions where the analysis has to hold up under scrutiny from people whose job is to find the hole in it.
Frequent questions about corporate finance advisory.
Tell us the decision you are facing, and we will tell you what the numbers have to prove first.
A short call, an honest read of the position, the plan and the risk, and a clear answer on whether we are the right team for it.
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