Activity

Business generally has been within expectations over the last 12 months and a lot of clients were not impacted as heavily as would have been expected from Covid. We have seen a delayed Brexit bounce from UK business seeking to set up a presence in Ireland to service their European clients. There has also been a lot of growth in private equity, predominantly from the UK, across sectors such as veterinary, dentistry and insurance brokers. Valuations for private business have been high, which along with the availability of capital has seen an upward trend in willing buyers and sellers. We have seen a material increase in activity with helping clients to structure to exit, protect assets, avail of reliefs, bring in new shareholders, and succession planning. I believe that business owners took the learnings from Covid and acted on planning that they may have been considering for some time

Outlook

In my view the world has moved on to a much more serious risk to business due to he war in Ukraine. We are looking at energy, food and input shortages, increased cyber security risk, and a material exchequer cost from the help required for Ukrainian people coming to Ireland. All this will feed into a much more cautious approach to investment, less disposable income, and the risk of business failure much higher than what came from Covid.

Workplace

I always have two questions I am discussing the issue with managers:

• Without our clients we do not have a business, so what is best to meet their needs and the high standards we set ourselves?

• What is best for the individual’s current career and the career path they wish to follow? I do not think there is a one-size-fits-all model, and we aim to be flexible taking the two questions above into consideration at all times.

USP

Our firm lives by our tagline ‘Together we make it happen’. We focus on understanding our client’s business, and the sector and environment in which they operate, to be able to help them in growing in their business journey. No matter whether our clients are employing salespeople in Germany, operating a factory in China, or purchasing a holiday home in Portugal, we have the expertise to manage that on behalf of our clients.

If you would like to speak to any of our advisors about the services we offer, please contact us today. We'd be glad to hear from you.