Origination Financial Analyst — M&A Modelling

Vesta Software Group; United States; Remote; USD 85,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Jonas Software is seeking a Financial Analyst – Originations within Pallas Finance to provide rigorous financial screening, modelling and Investment Committee preparation for acquisition opportunities across software verticals.

You will build acquisition models, assess revenue quality, churn, EBITDA and working capital, prepare IC papers, and support due diligence across finance, legal and people contributors.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 2 years experience in a financial analysis role with direct exposure to M&A: transaction services, corporate development, lower midmarket M&A, or growth/debt finance
• Genuine modelling capability — able to build an acquisition model from messy management accounts and a trial balance without a template, and to defend the assumptions in front of an Investment Committee.
• Understanding of software business economics: recurring revenue, retention and expansion, gross margin structure, implementation and services drag, and hosting costs.
• Comfortable working across multiple stakeholders and priorities at once, taking direction from the Finance Director on where to focus effort at any given time.
• Credible with a Portfolio Manager and a founder's finance director in the same week. Writes clearly and concisely.
• Self, directing, with sound judgement on when to escape and when to proceed.
• Exposure to vertical market software, in any sector.
• Experience in a buy, and, build, holding company or serial, acquirer environment with a high, volume, small, ticket deal model.
• Familiarity with earn out design and post, acquisition performance measurement.
• Working knowledge of share purchase agreements, disclosure letters and warranty and indemnity insurance, sufficient to work effectively with counsel rather than to replace them.
• Additional European languages considered a bonus

Responsibilities

• Screen inbound and adviser, introduced opportunities, from any part of the group, against group investment criteria and hurdle rates, recommending pursue, watch, list or pass with a written rationale.
• Maintain and refresh target maps and market intelligence for the verticals each Portfolio Manager is actively assessing, using public, paid and proprietary sources.
• Support Portfolio Managers' adviser and intermediary relationships by logging opportunities promptly and coordinating timely follow, up.
• Monitor market events, funding rounds, leadership changes, competitor acquisitions and distress signals and flag relevant opportunities to the appropriate Portfolio Manager.
• Build acquisition models from source data: revenue quality and recurring revenue analysis, customer cohort and churn analysis, maintenance and net revenue retention trends, normalised EBITDA, working capital, cash conversion, IRR and payback under base, downside and upside cases.
• Prepare Investment Committee papers and offer support material, investment thesis, valuation range and bridge, key risks, integration assumptions and returns scenarios.
• Support the central execution team and Portfolio Managers in coordinating due diligence workstreams across finance, legal, technical and people contributors; maintain the diligence tracker and issues log; translate findings into model and price adjustments.
• Support deal structuring: consideration split, earn, out mechanics and metric definition, deferred consideration, escrow and set, off, and operational ring, fence provisions.
• Track post, completion performance against the acquisition model and feed variances back into future underwriting, across all portfolios the role has supported.
• Own pipeline management jointly with the BD Manager: the BD Manager owns origination and outreach volume, this role owns the financial qualification and status of each target, and the two work from a shared, current view of the pipeline.
• Own the capturing of notes and information recorded in the group CRM, on behalf of whichever Portfolio Manager the work relates to.
• Produce a standing pipeline report for the Portfolio and Finance Director covering coverage by vertical and geography, stage conversion rates, and pipeline ageing across the group.
• Maintain a competitive and valuation reference set spanning the verticals in which the group is active.

Job description

Jonas Software is seeking a Financial Analyst – Originations within Pallas Finance to provide rigorous financial screening, modelling and Investment Committee preparation for acquisition opportunities across software verticals.

You will build acquisition models, assess revenue quality, churn, EBITDA and working capital, prepare IC papers, and support due diligence across finance, legal and people contributors.