“How are you finding the market?”

“How long until we start to see some significant changes?”

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These are the two questions that seem to come up in most meetings across our network at the moment. I am sure that most professional advisers and investors will be able to relate to this experience.

When you look at some of the main news headlines over the past quarter, it is easy to understand why there is so much intrigue about what is happening on the front line;

• Soaring inflation and predictions of hitting 11%
• Interest Rates rising to the highest level in 13 years
• Cost, availability and supply chain for energy, key raw materials and foodstuffs
• Increased EU tension over Northern Ireland arrangements
• Ongoing domestic political stories (no comments being made by me!)

….and all balanced with;

• Low unemployment
• High levels of deal activity
• Good availability of investment and funding

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The movement of Finance Directors and CFOs can always tell us so much about the real economy;

• The volume of moves can be a thermometer of confidence
• The proportion of turnaround and restructuring against growth
• Which sectors are recruiting? How are the traditional powerhouse and the emerging sectors performing?

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Our analysis of the past quarter of CFO moves across the Yorkshire and East Midlands’ regions;

Growth vs Turnaround

• 22% of the moves have been created on the back of positive growth – SMEs recruiting their first FD or corporates creating a new role for positive reasons
• 73% of the moves have been primarily created by churn – Replacing incumbents who are retiring, leaving for other opportunities or who have been asked to leave
• 5% are created for turnaround situations. Although there is some crossover with “churn” above, we have tried to extract these from the results to give a good idea of how the market is split

Sectors

• Manufacturing and Engineering always account for the majority sector and this quarter is no exception at 32%.
• As always in this quarter, the public and not-for-profit sectors have their strongest representation with 18%
• Technology (14%), Healthcare (6%) and construction (8%) all make up the rest of the leader board
• Retail, Services, Import, Property and Financial Services all account for less than 5% individually.

Ownership

Of the 82% that makes up all of the private sector businesses;

• 30% are within private equity backed businesses.
• 25% within private shareholdings
• 22% within plcs
• 18% within overseas subsidiaries

Gender Diversity

For the second consecutive quarter, we are pleased to say that female representation is at the highest level since we began our analysis – 36% of the appointments made in the past quarter have been women.

Questions can still be asked about the details of this representation and further analysis would be welcome, but this can only be a positive statistic to report.

Please click onto our Women In Finance page to see some additional details.

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Our team speak to some of the most informed members of the business network every quarter and nobody has a vision of the economy in the next 12 months.

We do see so many reasons for the Finance Director and CFO community to be confident for the future – a buoyant market of moves, so many growth stories, strong sectors and a resilience that has been building for many years. Strong financial leadership has been examined and the standard raised over the past few years. There may well be different challenges lying ahead in the future, but just as many opportunities and rewards for many.