How we have helped other clients
We work with companies of all sizes, from PLCs and SMEs, to early-stage ventures and investors. Our clients typically come to us for one of two main reasons, either as a result of strategic or structural change in their organisation (new strategy, reorganisation, refinancing, acquisition, investment or divestment) or with a desire to improve operational performance management.
Planning
Five year corporate plan for a UK PLC
Having initiated a major strategic review of their business, the CEO and CFO of BPP Holdings PLC approached us to compile a five-year financial plan for the group.
blueboxthinking designed, developed and rolled out a bespoke, flexible, strategic financial planning model. Through a short webcast we were quickly able to train users in the operation of the model to facilitate a rapid turnaround in divisional plan submissions.
Having compiled the plan across ten operating divisions and tested its sensitivity to a range of input assumptions, we developed a tailored communications package for the presentation of the plan to the company board. The company subsequently used the model and plans to discuss its mid-term growth aspirations with analysts in the City, as the basis for refinancing discussions with its bankers and as a means to set divisional performance targets.
“Their work was essential to getting tangible results from our strategy exercise. Their analytic capabilities, attention to detail and precision left us with a model of our business that is still in constant use.”
“Overall, we found in blueboxthinking exactly what we needed to turn the outputs of our strategy review into a meaningful five year financial plan. Thanks to their modelling work BPP is in a position to make significantly better informed decisions. The decision to work with blueboxthinking was an excellent investment and we continue to make use of the tools they have developed in our planning and budgeting processes. They are extremely useful in pinpointing some of the key drivers of shareholder value in the business and have been instrumental in helping us to start assigning accountabilities for the delivery of our mid-term targets which we have now communicated to the City. It has been a pleasure working with James and his company, blueboxthinking. His is a highly professional, impactful, boutique consulting firm and I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending them to you.”
BPP is a professional training company operating across disciplines such as accountancy, law and finance.
Refinancing, investment appraisal & valuations for international oilfield services business
The CFO of Acergy SA approached blueboxthinking to facilitate the $1bn refinancing of the company's cash and guarantee facilities through the development of an integrated financial model of its medium-term earnings and cash projections.
We were also asked to undertake the appraisal of a number of investment opportunities comprising new vessel acquisitions and major tenders in the North Sea and offshore Brazil & West Africa.
In addition, we conducted valuation work in support of tax planning and legal entity restructuring across the group.
“blueboxthinking has made a material difference to Acergy's corporate planning activities and I have no hesitation whatsoever recommending them to other clients. They have input into strategic initiatives and been a key player in assessing capital projects for the group. They have also brought a rigour and a quality to the investment appraisal process which has ensured that we have always had the relevant and important facts available to make decisions in a timely basis. They have quickly grasped the critical value drivers in our business and been able to recommend different options.”
Acergy SA is a leader in seabed-to-surface engineering and construction in the oilfield services sector and has an annual turnover of $2.2bn employing over 6,000 people worldwide.
US acquisition opportunity
Having identified a large US consumer electronics business as a potential acquisition candidate for Benefon Oyj (now GeoSentric Oyj), one of its portfolio companies, Octagon Capital Ltd required a sophisticated financial model to appraise the opportunity.
blueboxthinking worked with the client to develop a model of the acquiring and target companies, overlaying projected revenue synergies and cost savings. The model was used to underpin negotiations with the vendors as well as fund-raising discussions with prospective investors.
“… you did a fantastic job for us and we wouldn't have been able to get this far without your involvement.”
"blueboxthinking worked with us on a major acquisition project over a period of 6 months. We found their organisational skills and logic to be quite exceptional. Their ability to understand business concepts whilst at the same time developing high-level, sophisticated financial models was superb. blueboxthinking was able to collate information from senior management and finance staff and utilise the information to prepare financial forecasts and high quality management reports. Their ability to interact on a personal level with all kinds of people was great. I would highly recommend blueboxthinking and we continue to use them on other projects."
“blueboxthinking provided a highly sophisticated financial modelling tool to our company in its evaluation of a potential M&A transaction. The work was elegant, on-time, and highly versatile. The calibre of their work rivals any of the professional investment banks I've worked with in the past. I'd highly recommend them.”
Octagon Capital Ltd is a UK-based private equity funded turnaround investor.
GeoSentric is a developer and provider of solutions, products and technologies for location based services (LBS) and LBS-enabled social networks. Its intellectual property is delivered as software and services in products which include the GyPSii product platform (“GyPSii”).
UK technology venture fund-raising
Following a change in leadership and strategy, Intrinsiq Materials Ltd needed a new financial model to help manage the business towards its new strategic objectives and underpin efforts to raise follow-on funding from investors.
blueboxthinking developed a flexible forecasting model covering business operations, accounting and financing which could be periodically updated. The model allowed forecasts to be compiled quickly and automatically generated summary financial outputs for discussion with current and prospective investors.
“Intrinsiq Materials chose blueboxthinking to produce a five year forecasting tool to facilitate the compilation and presentation of financial projections to our investors. Their work was instrumental in helping us through a successful fund-raising round. The model was developed under exceptionally tight timescales yet is remarkably user friendly and allows for rapid modification in order to appraise multiple scenarios. The model is now routinely used in the business to compile our latest forecasts.”
Intrinsiq Materials Ltd is a nanomaterials development company.
UK government IT outsourcing bid
blueboxthinking was engaged by Fujitsu Services Ltd to develop pricing models to support contract negotiations for a range of competitive and non-competitive IT outsourcing bids with UK government clients including:
- a £300m contract extension to provide hardware and technical support to 24,000 users at the Home Office
- the pricing of the IT services contract for Crossrail, the new railway for London and the South East
In addition, we developed a service credit model to facilitate scenario modelling and underpin contract negotiations in a consortium bid to provide IT and support services in a billion pound ministry of defence bid.
“I enjoyed working closely with James through his company, blueboxthinking, as he is extremely goal-oriented and organised and he added real value to my team by focusing on delivering results, analysing processes, solving problems and objectively criticising potential solutions. He is an excellent sounding board, and was a key part of all my planning activities.”
Toshak Patel
Head of Bid Finance, UK Government Division
Fujitsu Services Ltd
“I was hugely impressed with James’ modelling skills and timely delivered outputs and am in no doubt that without his specialist skills and professional attitude the success of the bid would have been materially impacted.”
Kevan Findlay
Sales Controller, UK Government Division
Fujitsu Services Ltd
“The model was very well documented, robust and accurate. It enabled me to negotiate more realistic SLAs with the customer and showed that Fujitsu were on top of what was being asked.”
Paul Westfield
Service Director, Defence & Security Division
Fujitsu Services Ltd
Fujitsu Services Ltd in UK and Ireland is the leading IT systems, services and products company employing 14,000 people with annual revenues of £2 billion. It is the second largest IT supplier to the UK public sector and is part of the Fujitsu Limited group of companies headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Budgeting, reporting and forecasting tool for international technology business
In order to underpin GeoSentric Oyj’s rapid international expansion, the business needed a budgeting and forecasting tool that would allow it to set budgets and internal performance targets, consolidate and present monthly financial results from across its operating units and keep track of cash flow.
blueboxthinking designed and developed a budgeting, reporting and forecasting tool to collate the financial results and projections of the company’s four international operating units. Through the definition of a standard group-wide chart of accounts, the model allowed each operating unit to consistently report and forecast sales, operating costs, working capital and financing across a three year time horizon. The consolidation model pulled together the budgets, results and forecasts for each operating unit to generate a fully integrated monthly income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement for the group.
Management now routinely uses the tool to underpin the annual budgeting process, to evaluate monthly performance by division, to confidently assess near-term cash requirements and as a mechanism for board and investor reporting.
“blueboxthinking provided us with a first-rate service developing from scratch a comprehensive set of budgeting, reporting and forecasting tools for a publically quoted international group of companies. The tools were engineered to a high standard, easy to operate and comprised a range of insightful outputs to facilitate performance management and board reporting. Combining professional accountancy skills with real strategic and operational experience blueboxthinking was able to add significant value to the project by anticipating our needs as the business evolved and interpreting financial results and projections. I would have no hesitation in recommending blueboxthinking to other organisations to support decision-making across a wide range of corporate initiatives.”
GeoSentric is a developer and provider of solutions, products and technologies for location based services (LBS) and LBS-enabled social networks. Its intellectual property is delivered as software and services in products which include the GyPSii product platform (“GyPSii”).
Analysis
Management and investor reporting for technology venture capital fund
Following the establishment of QinetiQ Ventures LP, a new technology venture capital fund to house various spin-out technology companies from QinetiQ Group PLC and backed by QinetiQ and Coller Capital, the investment manager, Cody Gate Ventures LLP, approached blueboxthinking to help develop a consistent set of management and investor reports for the portfolio companies.
blueboxthinking designed a new quarterly management and investor reporting tool to report recent financial performance and present profit and cash projections in a clear and consistent format to investors for each of the portfolio companies.
With each portfolio company using different charts of accounts, reporting systems and processes, the tool and associated reports were essential in helping Cody Gate present a consistent picture to investors across the portfolio. With a rolling timeline the tool can be rolled forward as time goes by in order to present the latest results and forecasts.
“blueboxthinking was instrumental in helping Cody Gate Ventures in its early days with investor reporting and performance management by developing credible, coherent and creative quarterly reports. Thanks to the re-useable nature of the reporting tools developed we continue to use these reports as our main mechanism for communicating portfolio company performance and projections to investors… We have also found the reporting system to be an effective mechanism for cash management and investment planning… From the professionalism exhibited throughout their work with Cody Gate Ventures I would have no hesitation in recommending blueboxthinking to any prospective client.”
Cody Gate Ventures invests in businesses to meet the important needs of global corporations and government. What makes Cody Gate Ventures unique is its preferential access to disruptive, government-funded technologies to realise high-value opportunities across a range of sectors.
Product pricing scenario modelling for UK PLC professional training company
blueboxthinking ran a range of product pricing scenarios for BPP Holdings PLC to assess the likely impact on turnover and operating margins of a change to the way one of its leading products was priced across the country. This provided a framework for the business to evaluate changes to its pricing strategy and select a number of new pricing policies for implementation.
BPP is a professional training company operating across disciplines such as accountancy, law and finance.
Executive communications for property advisory business
blueboxthinking helped Corporate Property Advisers, a boutique property advisory firm, communicate the impact of its work with one of its larger PLC clients. We developed a set of tables and slides to illustrate the impact of their work in the context of overall corporate performance.
“For a long time we struggled to clearly articulate the impact of our property work on corporate results. blueboxthinking has helped CPA change this situation putting us in a position to clearly explain the full financial implications of property initiatives and communicate results in the language of the Board. In a cost saving environment, their analysis has given striking insights into how property can enhance our client’s corporate performance and enable property to be repositioned appropriately in the hierarchy of corporate priorities.”
Corporate Property Advisers' clear objective is to enhance their clients' corporate performance and competitive position by driving property strategies and creating portfolios that are aligned with the evolving needs of the business.
Data analytics and interactive decision support tool for UK PLC London property portfolio
blueboxthinking conducted a review of London classroom utilisation for BPP Holdings PLC to help identify areas of high demand and under-utilisation. Through data analytics and the development of an interactive property query tool we were able to bring property utilisation to the top of the senior management team agenda. This helped the business drive out cost efficiencies through a better use of classroom space and target areas for future improvement.
“This piece of analysis brought property utilisation to the top of the agenda facilitating senior management discussions on how best to utilise real estate capacity and providing valuable support to other discussions on the timing and location of our training courses. We continue to use this tool to track the utilisation of our teaching space in London and monitor forecast room bookings.”
BPP is a professional training company operating across disciplines such as accountancy, law and finance.
Stock management tool for electronic components distribution company
Nexus (GB) Limited distributes a range of secure memory keys. In order to efficiently manage the large volume and turnover of stock across the business they needed a robust, user-friendly system without the expense of a large corporate ERP system. blueboxthinking developed a dynamic, tailored model to track purchase orders, customer orders and stock levels by product in order to speed up the stock management process and focus management attention on those products where stock-outs are most likely to occur.
“After only a short initial briefing, blueboxthinking developed a bespoke, integrated sales, purchases and inventory control model for our company. The new model is very well designed, easy and intuitive to use with a range of built-in reports giving us instant access to insightful information we could only previously obtain from multiple sources. The model makes the whole process of managing inventory across the business considerably more efficient and less time-consuming. I would highly recommend blueboxthinking to anyone looking for a professional financial modelling firm to produce results rapidly and to an exceptionally high standard.”
Nexus (GB) Ltd is the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor for the complete range of secure memory keys and tokens manufactured by Datakey Electronics Inc.