Articles
11/2015 - VIP Opening Night of Thaikhun Nottingham
We very much enjoyed the recent VIP opening night of Thai Leisure's new Nottingham restaurant.
The restaurant chain was aided by A1 Financial Modelling, earlier in the year, in securing finance to support its rapid expansion plans.
09/2015 - Spreadsheet Risk worries three-quarters of accountants
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of accountants have rated “spreadsheet risk” as a major business risk, with many errors remaining unspotted, meaning the damage is difficult to quantify, according to new research.
Over half (58%) of the 100+ accountants surveyed by tech firm ClusterSeven claimed the frequency of errors found on spreadsheets was either ‘fairly high’ or ‘very high’.
Flawed spreadsheet design and a lack of formalised training can increase costs significantly for organisations.
Do you worry about spreadsheet risk?
Standardising financial models and spreadsheets by adopting a financial modelling standard such as FAST would save countless man-hours both in production and review as well as materially reducing error rates.
Contact us to discuss the needs of your business.
Read the news story in full here or read more about our modelling training courses.
07/2015 - Connection Capital announce their investment in Carter Cabin Hire
A1 Financial Modelling produced the financial model to support Carter Cabin Hire, a leading supplier of mobile cabins and portable buildings, with their private equity backed management buy-out.
 
"Mark’s model was a key tool in allowing us to evaluate the forecasts of a recently completed MBO we backed. Simply laid out, easily auditable and flexible it was one of the best forecast models we have worked with and, most importantly, an operationally useful tool for the business.
We have now engaged with Mark on other new investments and that is the proof of the quality of his work.”
Partner, Connection Capital
The £5.3 million deal completed on 13 July 2015 after a number of weeks of work to scope, evaluate and support the transaction.
02/2015 - SC Johnson acquires Deb Group
A1 Financial Modelling supported Deb Group with financial modelling services throughout the recent sale of the skincare solutions business to SC Johnson.
Private equity company Charterhouse exited their investment less than a year after Deb's acquisition of Evonik Industries' global skincare business, also supported by A1 Financial Modelling.
 
“Deb is an important platform for SC Johnson and helps expand our presence in industrial and institutional markets,” said Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. “Deb’s market leadership, channel strengths and commitment to innovation complement our own strengths.”
11/2014 - A1 Financial Modelling celebrates its third birthday
Many thanks to all our clients past and present!
07/2014 - More Dilbert...
No comment!
06/2014 - ICAEW launches guidance on good spreadsheet practice - download it here
The Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW) has launched a guide entitled ‘Twenty principles for good spreadsheet practice’ officially recognising the significant benefits of Financial Modelling.
 
The guide is intended both to:
• help eliminate errors and significantly reduce the time wasted on spreadsheets, and
• create a framework, and instil attitudes, which will encourage best practice to flourish.
Read the ICAEW's article in full here or download the guide here.
This is a really positive move by the Institute and was followed, swiftly, by their recognition of the FAST Modelling Standard, as used by A1 Financial Modelling, as the first standard to be compliant with the ICAEW Principles for Good Spreadsheet Practice.
Read this second article in full here.
04/2014 - Deb Group acquires Evonik Industries' global skincare business, Stoko
A1 Financial Modelling produced the financial models to support Deb Group, a skincare solutions group owned by private equity company Charterhouse, with their acquisition of Evonik Industries' global skincare business, which operates under the Stoko brand, to create the world’s leading occupational skincare company.
"We brought Mark in during the early stages of a project that resulted in us acquiring the trade and assets of a competitor that added 40% to the size of our consolidated business.
He developed detailed financial models that allowed us to view the various components of the "To be" Group (the existing and target businesses, synergies and one-off costs) either individually or on a consolidated basis.
The models were sufficiently flexible that we could use them for financing, due diligence and modelling purposes.
Mark quickly gained an understanding of the quirks of our business and was responsive to our changing requirements. He also proved to be approachable and easy to get on with, and able to explain the models to our team in a clear and concise way that will allow us to use the models within our business going forward."
Mark Tentori
Finance Director, Deb Group
The sale and purchase agreement was signed on 19 March 2014 after a number of months of work to scope, evaluate and support the transaction.
09/2013 - USEFUL TIP - Quickly Fix Unformatted Text
When you have inherited badly formatted text in abundance from a colleague or a system output, use TRIM/PROPER to quickly make it presentable.
TRIM removes extra spaces from text.
PROPER capitalises the first letter of each word.
So =TRIM(PROPER(cell reference of original text)) does both saving time.
07/2013 - USEFUL TIP - Automatic Row Formatting
Do you ever find yourself going blind looking at a huge table, either on-screen or printed out, and constantly losing your place?
Well suffer no more by using the power of conditional formatting!
By using the MOD function you can create a table in which every other row is a different colour and automatically updates as rows are added or deleted thus saving your eyes (and a ruler on the screen/page).
MOD(23,3) gives the answer 2 as 23/3 is 7 with remainder 2.
So MOD(Each Cell's Row Number,2) will give either a 1 or a zero alternately.
So highlight the area required (or the whole page) and click Home>Conditional Formatting.
Select "New Rule" and then "Use a formula to determine which cells to format".
Type =MOD(ROW(),2)=1 and choose your preferred formatting (I used a simple grey fill)... Job done.
04/2013 - Financial services remain weak on document management
Last week the FT reported, “JPMorgan suffered almost $6bn in losses because of trades from the so-called ‘London whale’ caused in part by avoidable errors on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets used to calculate risk, according to an investigation by the US bank.”
Despite this, “More than half of financial services groups in the UK have poorly applied or no controls for managing business-critical spreadsheets,” leaving themselves open to similar problems.
Do you have poor document management?
Financial modelling training could save your business $6bn!
Contact us to discuss your needs.
Read the news story in full here or read more about our modelling training courses.
03/2013 - Buyer found for Blockbuster stores
The DVD and games rental chain was sold to restructuring specialists Gordon Brothers Europe, its administrator, Deloitte, has said.
A1 Financial Modelling was engaged to create the recovery evaluation models on behalf of both the administrator and Blockbuster's management, and to a very short deadline.
"The model has allowed us to quickly calculate different complex scenarios in a matter of hours rather than the days it would have previously taken."
We were very happy to see this positive result after our involvement in this transaction.
Read the BBC's news story in full here or see our other recent engagements.
02/2013 - Financial modelling - is the government wasting millions?
Millions of pounds of taxpayers money could be saved every year if civil servants were not wasting time trying to decipher unnecessarily complicated financial spreadsheets, research suggests.
The problem is that, "people are simply spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to understand these models."
A group of professional services firms, includig Deloitte, estimate that Whitehall wastes as much as £70m a year.
Is your business similar?
Standardising financial models and spreadsheets by adopting a financial modelling standard such as FAST would save countless man-hours both in production and review as well as materially reducing error rates.
Contact us to discuss the needs of your business.
Read the BBC's news story in full here or read more about our modelling training courses.
11/2012 - More Dilbert...
Thanks again and keep them coming.
09/2012 - ModelOff
ModelOff is a fun, innovative and professional competition for financial modellers to develop and test their modelling skills against their friends, colleagues and top modellers from around the world. Participants from over 100 countries compete annually in two online qualification rounds with the finals held in New York.
To enter ModelOff 2012, you need to register online for Round 1 held on the 13th October 2012. Click the banner above.
06/2012 - On a lighter note...
We were sent these by a client and thought we should share them.
A1 Financial Modelling complies with the FAST standard and all other best practice in its financial modelling consultancy and modelling training courses.
To enquire further about any of our services, please contact A1 Financial Modelling.
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