This week’s Capital Agenda Blog comes from Alan Hudson, Head of UK&I Restructuring and Kirsten Tompkins, profit warning report author and UK&I Transaction Advisory Services Content Editor. UK quoted companies issued a record 301 profit warnings in the first quarter of 2020 – a total we’d usually expect over the course of a year, not three months. Over three-quarters of these warnings cited the impact of COVID-19, which has been a factor in every UK profit warning since mid-March. In this blog, we’ll explore what our profit warning data is telling us about the challenges facing UK compa ..read more

This week’s Capital Agenda Blog comes from Jon Hughes, Managing Partner for EY’s UKI Markets. Covid-19 is fundamentally affecting companies’ ability to operate and plan on a global level. The sheer extent of government and central bank support unveiled in the last few days underlines the unique combination of challenges created by this crisis and the degree to which this will impact every part of our lives. What we’ll do in this blog is set out a summary of the UK Government’s actions in the context of a framework of four key areas that we think companies need to address to respond to the tur ..read more

This week’s blog comes from EY’s UK&I Markets Leader, Lee Downham. In this week’s blog, we’ll set out where we stand now, before exploring which parts of the economy could be most vulnerable to further operational, supply and demand-side shocks – both direct and indirect. Whilst we hope the economic impact of the Covid-19 virus proves to be short, the early signs are it will be sharp, with wide ranging and unpredictable consequences. Our advice remains for companies to be clear in their purpose and to focus on reshaping their businesses to meet the challenge of increasing volatility – a pe ..read more

This week’s Capital Agenda Blog comes from Susanne Vanner and Zoe Edler It’s becoming harder for Private Equity to extract value in the current economic and competitive climate. Value creation by necessity has become more sophisticated, with an increasing focus on innovative and holistic approaches that address the need to grow brands, accelerate organic growth and find new opportunities. In this blog we explore how private equity – and indeed businesses more broadly – can address these needs through purpose driven intelligent automation to differentiate and improve customer experience. Custo ..read more

This week’s blog comes from EY’s UK&I Markets Leader, Lee Downham. Capital markets started 2020 with renewed optimism, but recent events have reminded us that new certainties and opportunities mix with old concerns and new worries. It’s this complex mix of forces that I think will create significant contrasts in fortunes – both between and within sectors – in 2020. It’s a highly diverse picture, with implications for companies’ ability to access the capital they need to invest to create an innovative and purpose driven organisation – as we explore in this week’s blog. Seeking 20-20 vision ..read more

This week’s Capital Agenda Blog comes from Alan Hudson, Head of UK&I Restructuring and Kirsten Tompkins, UK&I Transaction Advisory Services Content Editor. In 2019, a higher percentage of UK quoted companies issued profit warnings than 2008. We’re not facing recession. Insolvencies have risen in 2019 but are well below 2008 levels. This clearly isn’t as dire a situation as the peak of the financial crisis. But what 2019 does have in common with 2008 is unpredictability. What arguably makes it harder to forecast is the increasing pace of change and wider array of challenges companies f ..read more

This week’s blog to kick off the year comes from Fredrik Bürger, who leads EY’s Private Equity Value Creation service offering. Back in May 2018, I asked if Private Equity (PE)’s future lay in its past in terms of its established ability to carve-out and turnaround non-core businesses. Well, it’s certainly been a busy few years – but what happens next?  In this week’s blog, I want to re-examine the outlook for PE carve-outs and share our experiences of how to maximise value in this more testing part of the cycle. Means, motive, opportunity… Since I last blogged about the potential for PE carve ..read more

This week’s Capital Agenda Blog comes from Lee Downham  – Partner and UK&I Markets Leader, Transaction Advisory Services and Kirsten Tompkins, UK&I Transaction Advisory Services Content Editor. This week we look both back and forward as we reach the end of a year – and decade – of crisis, recovery, division, uncertainty and, above all, immense change. At times it felt as if we were stuck in the same exhausting news loop in 2019. But, this loop reflected the struggle to reconcile the impact of massive underlying changes in the political landscape, in our relationship with technology, in ..read more

This week’s blog comes from Julie Carlyle,  Partner and Head of Retail, UK & Ireland, and Brian Marshall, Transaction Advisory Services Retail Leader. Many retailers are pinning their hopes on the next six weeks – the golden period that could make or break their year. As we approach Black Friday, we’ll look at the prospects for this Christmas, whilst also exploring what retailers can do to not just survive but thrive now and beyond this festive season. The big lesson from our analysis of the last 20 years of retail profit warnings – released for the first time here – is the importance of r ..read more

This week’s blog comes from Lisa Ashe, Turnaround Partner in EY Transaction Advisory Services The strongest and brightest companies will always find opportunities in adversity. The big question for companies is how. How can they be the company that thrives in a world of rising uncertainty – and scrutiny? I had the pleasure of attending and contributing to the Financial Times Future of Dealmaking event in London on 7 November, where we discussed the challenges of transacting in this volatile environment and what behaviours companies can adopt to optimise their strategies and dealmaking. What I ..read more