Author: wp-lmc-advisorycouk
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For too long, finance has been defined by what has already happened. Reporting the numbers.Closing the month.Managing the budget.Explaining the variance. All necessary. But no longer enough. The modern finance function should help determine what happens next. From reporting performance to shaping it The strongest CFOs are moving beyond stewardship of the numbers and becoming strategic…
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Businesses rarely fail because they run out of profit. They fail because they run out of cash. Yet in many organisations, cash is still treated as an output of the financial model rather than something that can be actively managed, protected and deployed. That distinction matters. Revenue growth can consume cash Growth looks attractive on…
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For many businesses, commodity exposure is treated as a procurement issue. Fuel is purchased. Energy contracts are negotiated. Raw materials are sourced. Prices move and margins absorb the difference. But when commodity movements can materially change EBITDA, cash flow or pricing decisions, this is no longer simply procurement. It is a strategic financial risk. Do…
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Growth hides a lot. When revenue is rising, cash is available and targets are being achieved, leadership can look relatively straightforward. The real test comes when the numbers move in the wrong direction. A major customer is lost. Cash becomes tight. Margins fall. A transaction doesn’t complete. A transformation programme goes off track. The market…
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For years, social impact sat somewhere towards the end of the corporate agenda. Make a charitable donation. Sponsor a local initiative. Publish an ESG report. Include a sustainability page in the annual report. Those things can have value. But genuine social impact should go much further. Increasingly, the environmental, social and governance decisions made by…
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ncreasing EBITDA creates value. But sometimes the biggest value-creation opportunity isn’t increasing EBITDA. It’s changing what kind of business investors believe they are buying. Consider a company generating £10 million of EBITDA. At an 8x multiple: Enterprise Value = £80 million At a 12x multiple: Enterprise Value = £120 million At a 20x multiple: Enterprise Value…
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The role of the CFO has changed considerably. Financial control, reporting, forecasting, cash management, treasury and governance remain fundamental responsibilities, but they should increasingly represent the foundation of the role rather than its boundaries. A genuinely strategic CFO should understand not only how a business has performed, but where it is going, how it will…
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Revenue is growing. EBITDA is ahead of budget. The order book is strong. Yet cash is getting tighter. It is one of the most common contradictions in growing businesses. A company can be profitable and commercially successful while simultaneously becoming more financially constrained. The reason is simple: profit and cash are not the same thing. Growth…
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Businesses rarely need more financial information. They need greater clarity around what to do with it. That is the thinking behind LMC Advisory. After more than two decades working across businesses at different stages of growth, transformation, investment and change, one thing has remained consistent: the greatest value from finance comes when it reaches beyond the…