Director - Regulatory Finance

Job description

The Team

Infrastructure Advisory Group (IAG), a part of KPMG Deal Advisory in the UK, consists of over 300 professionals and is widely recognised as a leading independent business, financial and regulatory adviser in the infrastructure space. The group has won many awards, including Financial Advisor of the Year (Infrastructure Journal) for several years. The group has presence across the UK and is organised on a national basis, operating under a single national cost centre.

We provide in-depth advice on strategic, financial, regulatory and commercial issues driving investments in infrastructure across Transport, Power & Utilities, and Social Infrastructure in the UK and globally. Our work includes market and policy design, economic and regulatory analysis, deal structuring and execution, as well as strategic and transaction advice to enable private and public capital to fund infrastructure. We work closely with other functions within KPMG to advise clients on mergers and acquisitions, valuations, tax, accounting, and due diligence.

Power & Utilities (P&U) is the largest business area of the IAG and encompasses work for major clients in the sector, including all UK utilities as well as some of the largest energy and water companies in Europe and beyond. We provide in-depth strategic and technical advice on strategy and business planning and analysis, regulatory finance, corporate finance and corporate financial management, regulatory policy as well as in other areas to help our clients create value for both shareholders and customers. Our work combines elements of policy, finance, economic and strategy to assist our clients in structuring investments, securing financing, supporting regulatory regimes for the benefit of customers as well as maximising shareholder value. We are widely recognised by many industry stakeholders as market leaders influencing the future of the utilities sector.

Our P&U business is currently divided into 7 practices: Finance, Projects, Strategy, Regulation, Low Carbon, Transactions, and Benchmarking, and is continuously expanding with double digit growth over the last 10 years. As such we are looking for high quality candidates to support our growth and development of existing and new service lines, while building on the work already undertaken in the Group.

The Role

You would be joining the leading provider of regulatory, financial and economic consultancy services in the P&U sector. The role is to maintain this position, and to grow the business further. This will include gaining further penetration in the sector with existing offerings as well as developing new service propositions to clients.

The Regulatory Finance Director provides senior leadership to the Regulatory Finance team, working closely with other Directors and Partners in P&U to lead our client engagements and lead business development activity.

The projects that you will advise on will be high profile and varied. For example, in recent years we have advised on finance strategies for utilities optimised under relevant regulatory frameworks, cost of capital estimation, sophisticated risk analysis, CMA appeals across regulated sectors, financeability assessments, investment appraisals, impact assessments, financial modelling, design of regulatory financial mechanisms as well as transactions.

Roles and Responsibilities 

• Providing senior leadership to our c10 people strong regulatory finance team and contributing to other teams focused on the P&U sector;
• Contributing to the management of Infrastructure Power & Utilities business as part of the senior management leadership group;
• Building enduring client relationships and becoming the go to person for our clients on regulatory finance issues and relevant market opportunities;
• Leading client engagements on both public and private sector mandates on a day-to-day basis;
• Working with internal teams, client project teams and other professional advisors;
• Producing, reviewing and overseeing development high quality outputs such as expert reports, options appraisals, financial models, asset pricing analysis, risk modelling, financeability assessments, and client presentations;
• Maintaining a good technical understanding of the key sectors, in particular the energy and water sectors as well as developments in regulatory and corporate finance, regulatory policy, regulation, and commercial structures;
• Ensuring KPMG's quality and risk management procedures are completed to the appropriate standard;
• Performance management, coaching and mentoring of team members;
• Being a role model for staff and for the firm's values;
• Developing sector specific market intelligence; and
• Any other duties commensurate with the senior nature of the role.

The Person
 

Skills, Qualifications and Experience 

• Significant experience in regulatory finance and preferably corporate finance as well, ideally with experience of applying this to the water and energy sectors;
• Strong theoretical understanding as well as practical knowledge of financial economics including key areas of corporate finance;
• Experience in financial analysis using core techniques and methodologies in corporate finance;
• Understanding how changing market conditions can impact on returns and companies’ financial positions;
• A good understanding of scenario modelling and quantification of financial risk and impacts on financial viability with skills to implement it in practice;
• Understanding of core credit rating agency methodologies for utilities and typical capital structures and financing solutions in the sector;
• Experience of investment appraisal, development/build of financial models and analysis of hurdle rates;
• General understanding of energy policy and economic regulation;
• A track record of working in professional services, including leading a team, and both winning and delivering advisory services;
• Being comfortable managing staff and stakeholders across a wide range of disciplines including economics, finance, legal, and engineering;
• Understanding of key value drivers in utilities including policy, regulation, financing, investments, markets etc
• Assured and experienced in a client and market facing role;
• A go get attitude and a will to succeed, with experience of opening up opportunities;
• Being an independent thinker with the ability to identify and solve problems;
• Strong presentation and communications skills;
• Skills successfully to develop and manage client relationships; and
• Strong commercial awareness.