Senior M&A Advisor

Sterling Corporate Finance Limited
· Basingstoke (office‑based, with client travel)
· Full‑time About Sterling

Sterling Corporate Finance is a boutique corporate finance advisory firm based in Basingstoke. We advise the owners of privately held businesses in the UK lower mid‑market on the sale, acquisition and future of the companies they have built: senior‑led on every mandate, from first conversation to completion. We work across owner‑managed businesses of every kind, with particular depth in industrials and business services, and we deliver larger transactions as co‑adviser alongside established partner firms.

We also provide specialist financial analysis and consultancy to professional services clients.

You will be the lead day‑to‑day advisor on our client engagements, advising business owners on the most consequential financial decision of their lives and managing the work that follows from that advice.

• Assessing client businesses (their objectives, readiness, value drivers and constraints) and advising on the strategic options available: sale, management buyout, employee ownership, acquisition or continued independent growth;
• Identifying issues in a client's strategy, organisation, procedures and markets that would impair value or deliverability in a transaction, and recommending and overseeing remediation;
• Managing sell‑side and buy‑side transaction processes end‑to‑end: project plans, workstream coordination, and chairing of client and adviser meetings;
• Preparing information memoranda, financial information packs and management presentations;
• Researching and approaching buyer and target universes across trade, private equity and management; running structured, competitive bid processes;
• Analysing offers and advising clients on valuation, structure (consideration mix, earn‑outs, deferred elements), conditionality and negotiation strategy;
• Supporting negotiation of heads of terms and the commercial aspects of the share purchase agreement, working alongside the client's legal advisers through to completion;
• Managing due diligence: data rooms, enquiry responses and execution‑risk management;
• Financial modelling, business valuations (DCF, comparables, transaction multiples) and benchmarking, and developing the methodologies and analytical frameworks we use across engagements;
• Building relationships with the accountants, lawyers and industry intermediaries who introduce our clients.

• ACA and/or CFA charter holder (or equivalent professional qualification);
• An MBA or equivalent postgraduate business education;
• A working knowledge of the law of corporate transactions: enough legal literacy to fully appreciate the commercial consequences of heads of terms and SPA drafting;
• At least three years' of sell‑side M&A execution experience in the UK mid‑market (essential);
• Buy‑side experience, preferably gained in a private equity or corporate development context (essential);
• Debt financing experience (working with commercial lenders) essential;
• Advanced financial modelling and valuation skills (essential); and
• The credibility and network to originate work through professional intermediaries.

£55,000 per annum; genuine senior responsibility from day one (the person who wins the work does the work); direct exposure to owners, buyers, investors and funders across every stage of a transaction; and the opportunity to shape a young, ambitious advisory firm. Sterling Corporate Finance is committed to equal opportunities; we assess every application against the criteria above.

We are NOT able to consider candidates requiring Skilled Worker sponsorship.

• To apply, send a CV and short covering note to