Connect with Corporate finance by Richard Spilsbury  of Link Stone Advisory Limited for small business support on Enterprise Nation

Connect with Corporate finance by Richard Spilsbury  to grow your entrepreneurial network of start-ups and small business owners on Enterprise Nation.

Corporate finance by Richard Spilsbury , Link Stone Advisory Limited | Enterprise Nation

&lt;p&gt;We are boutique advisors offering integrated business advice and corporate finance. Our teams draw on professional expertise in finance, law, company secretarial&amp;nbsp;and tax support grounded with management experience to drive value creation, profit growth and business transformation in digital, media and FMCG.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We build solutions based around our clients&amp;rsquo; needs including:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Start-up and SME support&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Scale up support&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Exit planning&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Investor and corporate development.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

Services

Richard Spilsbury > Finance > Standard service > Corporate finance 

Richard Spilsbury

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&lt;p&gt;Buying and selling businesses - extensive experience&amp;nbsp;in not only providing the advisory aspects but also managing the operational aspects. We can take you from target identification through investment appraisal to integration/divestment.&lt;/p&gt;


I'm a freelance content creator and event host who helps small businesses and the organisations that support them. I'm also Enterprise Nation's Local Leader for Bristol.
I have 19 years of experience as a small business journalist having interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs from billionaires like Sir Richard Branson to the founders behind brand new start-ups.
I've worked for a range of leading small business publications and support groups, most recently as head of content at Enterprise Nation where I was responsible for the prolific output of content on the company's blog and social media. I now freelance for Enterprise Nation including hosting the Small Business sessions podcast.
I'm based in Bristol where I run and host regular events with the local small business community in my role as Enterprise Nation's Local Leader for Bristol. I also have strong connections with other major business organisations in the south west region.
In total, I've hosted over 100 events including conferences with an audience of hundreds for international brands like Xero and Facebook and live web chats from inside 10 Downing Street.
With my partner, I co-run Lifestyle District, a lifestyle blog focused on culture, art, theatre and photography.

Freelance content creator & event host

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As Enterprise Nation&apos;s Head of community it&apos;s my job to make sure that you’re getting the most from your membership. If you’re a small business owner I&apos;ll make sure that we’re matching you to the support you need to start and grow your business. For advisers, that means making you aware of every available opportunity to promote your expertise to the rest of the community and connecting you with entrepreneurs that are looking for support.

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An experienced Leader, Managing Director and Business Adviser with a passion for initiating change to create business transformation and positive impacts on growth, profitability and business value; through the development of planning, processes, people and products.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Trained as a Chartered Accountant by a top 4 firm and took up an appointment as Group Finance Director of a food manufacturer supplying FMCG. I led the drive to build the business focus of profitably supplying own label products to major supermarkets. I streamlined the business processes resulting in savings of around 20% in the cost base and a 12% margin improvement. I positioned the business for a successful trade sale to an international group. I then built an SME consultancy business focusing on mergers and acquisitions achieving 150 profitable transactions over 10 years. Taken up appointments as CEO and MD of clients in order to lead major programmes of growth and investment and achieved turnover growth of 58% and increased EBITDA by 140%.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Key Skills&lt;br /&gt;
Non-Executive Director - Manufacturing– Business Strategy – Business Development - Accounting - Financial Management – Change Management - Leadership – Mergers and Acquisitions – People Management – Negotiations – Product Development&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;nbsp;

Succession and Exit Planning

As the owner are you able to say when and how the business will deliver your personal financial objectives. Have you established those objectives?

I am an expert in finance, having worked in big investment banks such as Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Shearson Lehman, and am a retired actuary (insurance/pensions financial mathematician). I have a maths degree from Cambridge University and have had multiple careers relating eg to M&A, investment analysis, pensions, insurance, property, investment, financial planning, banking, derivatives...I have written numerous cutting edge papers on these subjects.
My favourite activity is to help businesses, small and large, on developing their business: writing a business plan, preparing financial forecasts, developing pricing tools for them such that they can better assess the prices they should be charging their customers, valuing their business, helping them to raise equity or debt finance.
I have lectured on finance and investment at various leading universities. Written numerous papers which have had a major influence on how the insurance and pensions industries are run.  I have been a senior investment banker advising on M&A, risk management, shareholder value optimization, and also investment analyst (banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals, smaller companies...).
What distinguishes me is that I do NOT provide advice (!!). For example, I write a factual business plan. Or, I calculate how much your business is worth based on my knowledge and expertise, and information you supply. From this you can decide your best strategy, easily.
I am real good at helping you decide also, for example, how much your home is worth, what investments suit you, whether interest rates are headed up or down, whether there is going to be a market crash or boom, which type of loan finance to select...
In my opinion, companies stand to gain a lot of money in market value added terms from my work compared with other professionals. They have no understanding, in general, of statistics, of finance etc. They may be experts in their fields, but not in mine.
I am NOT a solicitor, estate agent, IFA, mortgage broker…I am an investment expert who has 46 years’ experience researching and thinking about financial matters. I love valuing things (property, mortgages, shares…). My philosophy is to do work such as is required by a client but have a preference for them using a market value maximization rule. Are you better off in £ value terms by taking out the mortgage, buying or selling the property with or without a mortgage, selling the business at this price…?
PLEASE NOTE. I AM NOT REGULATED UNDER THE PRA AND FCA, ALTHOUGH I USED TO BE WHEN I WAS WORKING. With any work undertaken by me, you are NOT covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
List of my clients over the last 46 years:
1. Insurance. Virtually all UK life insurers, 20 UK general insurers, 4 Lloyds syndicates, 7 Italian insurance companies, 5 French, 4 Dutch, 20 Spanish, 15-20 German, 5 American, 2 Trinidad, 1 Jamaican, Jamaican government insurance supervisor, 2 Hong Kong insurers
2. Pension funds. 100 UK schemes, 4 large French schemes (including 2 state schemes), 3 Italian, 5 Dutch, UK government actuaries department
3. Property. 1 Australian company, 1 South African company (Liberty International hired me to value their Lakeside and other major shopping centres for inclusion in their group accounts). Numerous small clients, individuals, insurers, one pension fund.
4. Investment (equities, bonds, gold, property, bitcoin...). Many unit trusts, investment trusts, pension funds, insurance companies, 2 hedge funds, countless individuals. Numerous investment managers mostly in the City of London
5. Personal financial planning: retirement, insurance, property...advices. Some 70 individuals on a formal paid basis, many unpaid informal.
6. Mortgage advice. Mostly for myself over the years, very detailed analyses covering the market. 4 to individuals on a paid basis, 3 unpaid.
7. Asset mix advice. Derivatives advice. Mostly to large companies, institutions, pension funds and insurers, a few to government treasury departments in Europe.
8. M&A deals. Many industrial small and larger companies. Many insurers. 7 FTSE 100 deals, many proposals, UK, Europe.
9. Credit analysis. Many transactions for a Ukrainian bank. Chief risk manager for a large Swedish multinational insurance company, Lloyds syndicates&apos; regulatory body. One Australian bank.
10. Banking. Many projects for UK clearing banks, many for 2 Australian large banks
11. Small business appraisals and financial modelling. Many. Some 10 M&A transactions of small companies.
In my profession as an actuary I received the the Jim Anderson award for Professional Excellence, and was awarded ‘VIP’ status by Worldwide Who&apos;s Who in 2014.
In the actuarial profession, I had a high profile as a result of many influential papers including:
•	Financial Theory Of Defined Benefit Pension Schemes
(“Eighteen years&apos; ago today, Jon Exley, Shyam Mehta and Andrew Smith published what has been described as the most important and influential paper ever written on defined benefit (DB) pensions”)
•	ALLOWING FOR ASSET, LIABILITY AND BUSINESS RISK IN THE VALUATION OF A LIFE OFFICE
•	Asset Strategy For Defined Benefit Pension Schemes
•	Consistent Assumptions For Multinational Asset Models
•	Exley Mehta Smith Market Efficiency
•	Exley Mehta Smith Mean Reversion
•	Hedge Funds For Pension Funds
•	Pension Funds— A Company Manager&apos;s View
•	QUANTIFYING THE SUCCESS OF A LIFE OFFICE
•	Summary And Comparison Of Approaches Used To Measure Life Office Values
•	TAXATION IN THE ASSESSMENT OF PROFITABILITY OF LIFE ASSURANCE PRODUCTS AND OF LIFE OFFICE APPRAISAL VALUES
•	Life Assurance Sector Review: A Fresh Approach, Shearson Lehman Hutton
•	Pricing of Insurance Risk, Staple Inn Actuarial Society
My work has been highly influential in creating change to the way insurance companies and pension funds are run across the world, particularly in the UK (so that, for example the risk borne by insurance companies is now far lower, and for pension funds it is now mandatory to publish and also carry out valuations to see whether the scheme is solvent).
I am a yoga teacher with an advanced teaching certificate since 1977, having for example been a co-author of the best selling book &quot;Yoga: the Iyengar Way&quot;.
My favourite activity is watercolour painting.

Director

Shyam Mehta

I am an expert in finance, having worked in big investment banks such as Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Shearson Lehman, and am a retired actuary (insurance/pensions financial mathematician). I have a maths degree from Cambridge University and have had multiple careers relating eg to M&A, investment analysis, pensions, insurance, property, investment, financial planning, banking, derivatives...I have written numerous cutting edge papers on these subjects.
My favourite activity is to help businesses

Corporate finance by Richard Spilsbury

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