What does Corporate Recovery & Insolvency within a public practice involve?
Corporate Recovery and Insolvency offer some of the most challenging and rewarding careers in Professional Services. In the event of an individual or business getting into financial difficulties and failing to meet their obligations to creditors or shareholders, insolvency specialists (insolvency practitioners) are called upon by the creditors or indeed by the individuals or businesses themselves.
In such situations, the insolvency practitioner's objective is to either restructure and turn the business around to profit, or to wind it up and repay as much of its debt as possible to the creditors.
Junior level
Candidates usually commence their careers as Junior Administrators, achieve either accounting or legal qualifications, and then progress to sit the IPA or at a more senior level the JIEB examinations. Newly qualified accountants from an accounting or audit background are also welcome to make a switch and set out upon a corporate recovery career path.
In assessing whether you are interested and suitable for a career in Corporate Recovery it is important to research the variety of options available to you. You need to have the technical ability to deal with legislative and financial matters pertaining to a distressed business and the personal confidence and character to personally deal with the stakeholders involved - creditors, debtors, directors and employees.
If you think that this might be a career for you then please contact the consultant whose contact details are provided below.
Senior level
In general, JIEB qualified candidates who have followed a consistent and logical structured career path are highly prized additions to teams whether in legal and accounting practices, in the banking sector or the public sector.
There have been significant changes and developments in the type of companies seeking insolvency and corporate recovery candidates. At the personal level, since the Enterprise Act, the boom in bankruptcies and IVAs the hiring of administrators has increased the need for personal specialists both in practice and in new entrepreneurial businesses keen to profit from the booming personal debt management market.
In seeking a new role, you need to assess such organisations in terms of their business structure, proposition and financing with the same rigour as you would any client business. In the best of these businesses, talk of share options and possible listing is attractive and the short-term financial rewards would outweigh those available in a partnership. However, is it worth the risk of moving away from the established practice model and a partnership role that would be yours within the next couple of years?
At the corporate level, the increase in debt trading, the range and diversity of investors and the size and complexity of global businesses have conspired to increase demand for restructuring specialists with a great deal more than IBR experience. These are specialists who understand valuations, can produce complex financial models to map restructuring strategies, and who then have the confidence and composure to pitch them to fund managers. JIEB qualified candidates in this market with these skills will be able to lead and be involved in large scale, exciting cross-border restructuring, turnaround and financing deals and strategies.
At this level, particularly in the banking sector, the challenge and the salaries are just as significant as elsewhere, if not more so. However, this route leads down a corporate finance career path and practitioners in this sector are wise to build and protect their restructuring specialism in order to retain their unique value in these organisations.
If you are interested in exploring any of these options then please contact the consultant whose contact details are provided below.
For further information about Corporate Recovery and the services we offer in this sector, please contact Rachael Bunton on 020 7269 2306 or email rachaelbunton@michaelpage.com
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