R3 Member Spotlight: Ian Davison

15 August 2024

Ian is a Chartered Certified Accountant, Licensed Insolvency Practitioner, and Director at Keenan CF. Keenan CF is a boutique independent transaction and restructuring practice based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In this Spotlight, we ask Ian about his perspective of the profession as a smaller practice IP and his view of the challenges facing the profession.

What made you decide to specialise in restructuring?

Like many, my path into restructuring was accidental. I graduated university in 2010 at the height of the post-credit crunch recession when training contracts were a prized possession. The comparison to today’s graduate recruitment opportunities is stark.

I was lucky to be offered a training contract in a large international firm’s restructuring team in Belfast and have never looked back. I didn’t pick restructuring, I applied for the conventional audit training contract and due to a stroke of luck I ended up in restructuring.

Working in restructuring in Northern Ireland through the early 2010s was an incredible time to train and learn. The frequency of new appointments and opportunities seemed endless. The work was exciting and tangible. You were on the ground dealing with physical assets and people, and I was hooked.

Roll on 14 years later and I’m still as hooked as ever. Albeit I am a lot less ‘gung-ho’ than I used to be – it’s amazing what the fear of a monitoring review and taking cases in your own name does to turn a brash trainee into a reserved and grumpy IP. 

Is there one piece of advice you wish you’d been given at the start of your career?

Play the long game and invest in your network. So much of our work is from long standing relationships, you need to invest in these relationships over time.

What do you consider to be your biggest achievement in the profession to date?

I appreciate it is a cliché, but it is probably passing the Joint Insolvency Examination Board (“JIEB”) exams. All of us that have been through it have an extra respect for those people who are going through it. I am not aware of another set of professional exams quite like them. We need a barrier to entry to protect the integrity of the profession, but I’m not convinced putting the next generation of IPs through it is really appropriate. I don’t quite see the correlation between being able to recite EC Regs or the IVA protocol and being able to deal with a very aggrieved retention of title creditor who arrives at a company’s premises on day one of a job.

Despite saying all this, for anyone who is thinking about doing the JIEB exams, do them. It is an amazing feeling passing them and unlocks the next stage in your career.

Appointment wise, I have been fortunate to trade administrations on, complete pre-pack sales and save businesses through CVAs. However, a recent job I have really enjoyed involves a complex investigation where we unravelled and recovered multiple million pounds worth of antecedent transactions. We are forecasting we will return 100p/£ to creditors, which I appreciate is the exception not the rule on these types of cases. It’s a part of the job I think the profession could and should talk about more.