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June 10, 2020
Cash flows, valuation, accounting, and fund structures, budgeting, reviews… As the one who holds the purse strings, you are smack in the intersection of activity and decision-making! Discover what it’s like to juggle concurrent transactions throughout the day with multiple stakeholders (funds, regulators, bankers, lawyers). Here’s a day-in-the-life of a Financial Controller:

9.00am: Coffee first! Then let’s organise our day.
10.00am: Let’s start our Finance team meeting and go through our firm’s existing funds, their Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and incoming funds.
11.15am: Gotta attend a board meeting for Fund A that invests in logistics. My role here is to present the valuation, call for capital, discuss cash flow and answer any dividend-related queries on behalf of the firm.
12.30pm: Lunch time at last!
1.30pm: Looking into the upcoming Fund C that invests in a commercial space. There’s a conference call I have to sit in later at 5pm, let’s prepare for it.
Here’s my to-do list before that first call:
- Review the 30 SPVs structured,
- Set up the fund structure
- Liaise with the Limited Partners (LPs) and understand their requirements later
3.20pm: Quick 1-to-1 mentoring with our Junior Accountant to brief him on auditing the investments. Promising chap as he picks up quite fast!
4.00pm: Going back to reviewing and taking note of possible changes in some of the SPVs for Fund C. One more hour till the next meeting – shall brief the Senior Accountant & invite her to join in the call as well!
5.00pm: Call with Fund C has begun! Great, glad to see Senior Accountant 2 stepping up to be accountable for the SPV level, while I take the lead on the fund-level finance responsibilities.
6.15pm: Great call, managed to understand the Limited Partner’s (LP) requirements and expectations for Fund C – targeting to have this up in the next 6 months! Time to debrief with Teammate 2 to identify and clarify any technical understanding discrepancies. These include the IFRS framework, service providers (e.g auditor, fund administrator, lawyer, banks, etc) and the frequency of the reporting review.
6.35pm: The firm has recently launched a new joint-venture (JV) Real Estate fund, Fund B. Preparing the first valuation for Fund B and calculating the capital to call for in tomorrow’s meeting with the LPs. It’s going to be a long night…
7.45pm: Let’s call in dinner first – thank goodness for delivery apps!
8.35pm: Back to the grind for Fund B – last lap: consolidation and tax calculation…
9.45pm: We are done for Fund B. Now to look into the corporate accounting side of this firm: monthly accounting reviews by our service provider and to analyse the balance sheets before reporting back to the Chief Financial Officer in our headquarters!
11.30pm: That is a wrap! It’s time to go home, finally!
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