Championing Irish industry is not a dream but a full-time business

Deloitte prides itself on partnering with Irish companies expanding globally, every step of the way, helping them become leaders in their fields. Tax partner and head of Deloitte Private, David Shanahan has been with Deloitte for over 20 years, working with Irish businesses from fast growing early-stage companies to the largest family businesses, Irish PLC’s and private equity backed groups.

Having spent two years leading Deloitte’s Irish tax presence in New York a decade ago, he now uses his experience and global network to his advantage back in Ireland. “I flipped my skill set to work with Irish companies to help them structure the expansion of their operations as they seek to excel on a global scale,” he says, and is clearly revelling in the work. “Whether a client is looking at a new manufacturing plant in Mexico and needs help with tax incentives or they need diligence support for an acquisition in the UK or Brazil, I have the right teams to bring to the table.”

“Partnering with founders and leaders that are creating innovative products and scaling overseas is exciting. They have the confidence to do that on a global scale, and for me, that’s exciting – being close to them, working with them on the journey, and helping them achieve their ambitions.”

He expects to see some of the private companies Deloitte work with become as big as Kerry Group, Kingspan or CRH, and notices a newfound confidence in Irish business that will underpin those big dreams. “They have ambition, they want to scale, whereas maybe 20 years ago their ambition might have been to be acquired by a multinational,” he says. “We’re now finding that owners and managers of Irish businesses aspire to drive that growth themselves, often taking advantage of the mid-market private equity option to facilitate and accelerate that scaling activity. They access the funds they need to pursue an acquisition for example, they also receive the benefit of experience and support from the private equity house as well as from ourselves. That allows them to continue to operate the business and benefit from the next stage of growth.”

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The option for Irish companies to source global funding, assisted by Deloitte, and its network spanning more than 150 countries, is helping to build in more of an export focus and growth mindset.

“With the prevalence of mid-market private equity, we’re seeing a lot more Irish businesses get the funding they need to help them expand overseas.”

Shanahan is proud to say his colleagues in Deloitte financial advisory have been instrumental in supporting domestic Irish businesses to fund the expansion of their domestic and overseas operations. Deloitte Ireland teams have supported transactions valuing in excess of €4.2 billion, for both global and indigenous companies.

“Quite often those companies would be challenged in terms of raising finance, so our team taps into our leading global network and comes up with a suite of options setting out how and where they might be able to access funding,” he explains. “We work with these companies across all stages of their life cycle, and it gives them great confidence to know that we’ve done this before, we’re connected globally and that they have someone they trust with them as part of that journey.”

Challenger and champion

In addition to traditional areas which one might expect Deloitte to operate in, such as directly advocating for tax policy changes with the Department of Finance, Deloitte also supports indigenous companies in several other ways. Key examples are its award programmes such as the Technology Fast 50 and Ireland’s Best Managed Companies and working with industry organisations such as Scale Ireland and the Family Business Network. This year marks the 24th edition of Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards, with the winners revealed today, Thursday, November 30th, at an event in the Mansion House Dublin.

“Fast 50 is about supporting the best of the indigenous tech sector in Ireland,” says Shanahan. “We rank companies based purely on revenue growth over the last four years, so it’s completely objective.”

The list features a broad spectrum of the Irish tech ecosystem, from early-stage start-ups to companies with revenues over the €1 billion mark. It’s always an interesting mix of fast-growing new names, repeat entrants who have had strong growth over a number of years, and well-known brands.

“Some of the past winners have gone on to list on the Stock Exchange, such as Fineos, Kainos, and First Derivatives. We’ve also seen companies featured that have achieved unicorn status, such as LetsGetChecked, Flipdish, Fenergo, and a number of others.”

With the ease of exporting services, compared to traditional material products, tech is a sector where Shanahan sees a big difference in new Irish companies. “You see emerging fast growing tech companies exporting from day one; 100 per cent of their sales are from outside of Ireland. They have big ambitions, and they’re thinking global from day one. That’s different from what we would have seen 10 to 15 years ago.”

Best Managed Companies

Ireland’s Best Managed Companies is a broader church and, after surveying businesses from across all sectors over the past 15 years, it has become a who’s who of Ireland’s top privately-owned businesses.

“In many cases, it’s a natural progression for some companies from the Fast 50,” says Shanahan. “The entrants in Best Managed Companies tend to be at a more mature stage of their life cycle with many of them family-owned businesses.”

Ireland’s Best Managed Companies programme is “more involved”, says Shanahan. As well as considering financial performance, a detailed judging process evaluates the entire management team and business strategy; the judges also dig deeper, into entrants’ environmental, social and governance standards, strategic planning, and talent and innovation strategies, he explains.

Deloitte works with entrants on formulating their submission to judges, looking at their capabilities, strategy, and financials. “We get to understand that company, so we can help better support them. We can challenge them in a way that they haven’t been challenged in the past and set out specific recommendations for those companies to help them grow. We can prompt them to think about something in a different way, offer them a different perspective based on what we’ve seen other “best” companies do, and the companies value that perspective.”

Last September Deloitte recognised 130 indigenous companies as a Best Managed Company, including eight new additions. Four of these are Dublin-based; APC Ltd, Codex, Mail Metrics and Topflight Travel Group; two are from Galway; JJ Rhatigan & Company and Production Equipment Europe; as well as Kyte Powertech, Cavan, and Lowe Corporation, Antrim.

The network of Best Managed Companies has a combined turnover of €17 billion and €3 billion of exports sales, providing employment for over 53,000 people across a range of sectors – from manufacturing and tech to construction and food and beverage.

A time to double down

“Domestic Irish businesses are very much the cornerstone of the Irish economy, creating huge value for their communities; over 80 per cent of employment on the island is from domestic business,” Shanahan underlines.

“If you look at the past year, ESRI figures suggest that domestic businesses are growing at a faster rate than the wider economy; that’s interesting to see. When we look at various external factors that are going on in the world, it’s important for us to continue to provide support and access to global networks for domestic Irish businesses. Our support has, and will, continue to enable them scale, and to help them become leaders in their fields on a global basis.”

Deloitte.ie