For many UK financial services and retail companies the impact of the US mortgage crisis has been not so much a ‘ripple effect’ as a heavy ‘plunk-plop’.

“In one sense, the private equity model is much more transparent than the public company model,” argues Neil MacDonald, the FD of AES Engineering.

Ninety-seven percent of M&A deals by UK companies fail to achieve their stated objectives because it’s so difficult to combine corporate cultures and structures.

Colin Glass didn’t have to give up his day job to satisfy his entrepreneurial spirit. He’s combined his passion for SMEs with a profession that brings in the cash – accountancy.

The new chair of the Quoted Companies Alliance says the ever-increasing inability of companies to carry out private placings is a huge issue for entities trying to access capital.

NCC Group doesn’t do acquisitions without an earnout in place. FD Paul Edwards explains why he has no qualms about this sometimes-controversial deal structure.

Jamie Lamb, FD of hotel franchise operation Kew Green Hotels, explains how they financed their hotel business from start-up to mid-cap business.

Growth is good; everyone knows that. But too much growth can put an FD trying to take a company to the next level in a tricky situation, as Eden Brown’s Michael Sterling discovered.

Corporate finance expert David Blair has one thing to say to FDs paying advisers for an upcoming transaction: use the resulting business plan for the next year instead of just for the deal.

The story of NCC Group’s move from AIM to the main market is a boring one, but finance director Paul Edwards wouldn’t have it any other way.