FDD Exit Opportunities
Exit Opportunities
From my time in the industry I have seen the following exits take place (non-exhaustive):
Corporate development - Despite having strong exposure to deals through FDD involvement, there will still be a steep learning curve as you need to become an expert in all parts of the deal lifecycle, from origination to post acquisition integration. There is likely greater upside from a remuneration perspective, albeit this will largely depend on the business and their backers.
FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) - FP&A is broad and can cover interesting modelling/strategic planning to basic metric reporting. This is a very common exit post burn-out, albeit you have to be careful that you aren’t simply moving into a monotonous financial reporting role. Salaries may be at similar levels but bonus potential is significantly reduced - a trade off for a more predictable work-life balance.
PE deal-team (where the deal team wishes to bring on individuals with accounting and DD expertise) - It is commonly high performing team members that are earlier in their career that make this move (i.e. up to and including manager position in the big 4). There is significant remuneration upside, albeit likely longer hours and higher stress.
Restructuring - Restructuring professionals will largely have a very similar work-life balance, with periods of full-on sprint and patches of down-time. Further remuneration levels are likely to be similar. The draw of restructuring is the exposure to distress scenarios and greater collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders.
Note: I have never seen anyone return to audit (public accounting as it is commonly referred to in the US)!
All you need to know
The below information pack (60+ page document with accompanying example Excel databook) will benefit any individual looking into a potential move into the financial due diligence profession (often referred to as transaction services or transaction advisory services in the market). The information pack will prove useful for potential interview questions or even simply establishing a general understanding of the typical financial due diligence thought-process.
The pack will also be beneficial for any already successful FDD candidate who is looking to acquire a strong technical understanding in order to hit the ground running.
FDD Interview Preparation Pack and Example Excel Databook
Complete FDD (Transaction Services) interview preparation pack (60+ page document + example Excel databook). Insights into the FDD process and detailed technical examples covering all three key FDD workstreams: Quality of Earnings, Net Debt and Net Working Capital.
Candidate feedback on the interview preparation pack:
“I have passed my interview as a consultant in corporate finance. I was asked to prepare the "clean" EBITDA and Working capital. The information pack helped me a lot!” - H Yue, May 2023
“Informative and to the point, gave me the confidence I needed.” - Harkirat K, November 2022
I was able to secure 2 full time offers from my interviews for TAS roles while reviewing the course pack. Most of the recruiters / managers interviewed with were impressed that I had a baseline understanding of FDD coming from an audit background at a big 4" - Jose V, August 2022