Udaiveer Anand

Optio is a London market insurance intermediary, providing underwriting services and placing specialty commercial lines' insurance on behalf of insurers.

• Hired by private equity firm, Preservation Capital Partners, after helping them through exit and fund continuation sale in early 2020
• FCA regulated Board director, sitting on 5 different regulated entity Boards across London, Malta and Dubai – responsible for all regulatory returns and submissions, accuracy of client money reporting, etc.
• Developed new monthly investor financial reporting dashboard, focusing on KPIs and using these to inform discussions with CEO, investors and Board
• Hired and built a Finance Function from scratch during middle of Covid – including Financial Controller and Reporting team, and Commercial Finance team; currently managing team of 10 Finance professionals including client money and credit control functions
• Led the development of a new, detailed and bottom-up 5 year planning and forecasting model, and provided complete transparency and ownership of line of business P&Ls to business heads
• Achieved Finance transformation, enabling use of data-warehouse capabilities and system- driven efficiency enhancements in month-end reporting and automating client money calculations – cut-down month-end reporting timelines significantly
• Led business through deep restructuring, including cost rationalisation, and target operating model improvement, in response to downturn in performance upon joining; achieved c.20% annualised cost savings in 2020- 2021, and successfully maintained >20% EBITDA margin
• Following restructuring of business, drove topline, which fell by c.40% between 2019 to 2020, achieving revenue growth of 60%+ between 2020 and 2022, through organic and inorganic growth – overall turnover growth from c.£19m to c.£32m over two years, with FY23B EBITDA approaching ~£11m
• Delivered two strategic, bolt-on acquisitions in 2021, and new office opening in Dubai in 2022; involved in all aspects of pre-deal evaluation and valuation, through to due diligence and SPA work. Led work on Dubai Regulatory filings and Business Plan; led sale of non-core group subsidiary to global broker in 2022-2023
• Responsible for relationship management across PE investors and debt providers, with complete charge of cashflow, debt covenants, trading updates, planning and forecasting, refinancing, FX hedging etc.

• Worked as independent consultant supporting private equity and corporate clients across transactions, business planning, strategic initiatives, among others.
• During this time, worked with current investors, Preservation Capital Partners, to help them undertake continuation fund sale of Optio Group in H1 2020, working on all aspects of exit process, including leading and guiding Management team through all financial, commercial and legal due diligence requests and questions from start to finish, working closely with sell-side advisors and lawyers.

A&M is a specialist consulting firm with 4,000+ employees globally, working with PE and corporate clients across restructuring, performance improvement and transaction advisory

• Built an insurance-services focused transaction advisory practice from scratch in London, using prior networks within private equity and corporates to generate recurring advisory revenues of c.£4m
• Led buy-side and sell-side M&A financial/ accounting and broader due diligence advisory engagements for private equity and strategic buyers, responsible for revenue generation, and overall engagement and client relationship management
• Seen as trusted advisor to senior PE clients and CFOs/ M&A teams at corporates
• Built and developed relationship with clients including: Carlyle, JC Flowers, Equistone, Preservation Capital Partners, PIB, GRP, AJ Gallagher, among others

Manager through to Senior Manager, EMEIA Financial Services Transactions Advisory Services

• Part of Financial Services Transactions Advisory Services team at EY, focusing on insurance sector, providing transaction due diligence support to clients across private equity and industry
• Led teams of 3-10 M&A professionals on special projects and daily operations
• Joined as a Manager and progressed rapidly to becoming a key senior member of the insurance sector-focused transactions team, working on some large and complex transactions in the UK and European P&C and Life insurance sectors
• Clients included: CVC, Apollo, Advent, Brit insurance, Generali, XL-Catlin, among others

Part of Group Capital and Treasury Management functions, first at RSA then moved on to Aviva.

• Planning and forecasting of Group capital, including Solvency and Economic Capital, quality of capital (Tier I, II, Hybrid), identifying executable management actions to improve capital strength
• Calculation, reporting and analysis of Return on Capital Allocated, monitoring of rating agency capital positions; involvement in on-going and one-off projects, including for example, capital input for Reinsurance strategies, Stress and Scenario testing, Dividend policy modelling, among others.

• Trained with PwC, passing all exams at first attempt, and progressed towards managerial role within its Audit Assurance division in Birmingham
• Following qualification, completed a six-month secondment within PwC's Transaction Services Financial Due Diligence team in London, providing advice to clients across Private Equity and Corporate, across broad range of industry sectors.