Service
Financial Advisory
Funding readiness, due diligence, valuations, and advice on the exchange control and structuring questions that arise when money moves across a border.
Advisory work is where the compliance base pays off. Once the numbers are reliable, the useful questions become answerable: whether the business is fundable, what it is worth, whether an acquisition is what it appears to be, and how a cross-border arrangement should be structured before it is signed rather than after.
We are a small practice and we scope this work narrowly. Where an engagement needs specialist legal, valuation or tax counsel beyond what we can properly provide, we will say so and work alongside them rather than stretching.
What the engagement covers
- Funding readiness reviews — what a lender or investor will ask for, and whether you can currently produce it
- Financial due diligence on an acquisition target, including quality of earnings and working capital analysis
- Vendor due diligence and preparation for sale
- Business valuations for transactions, shareholder arrangements and disputes
- Advice on exchange control requirements for cross-border transactions, working with your authorised dealer
- Withholding tax and double taxation agreement positions on cross-border payments
- Transfer pricing documentation support for related-party arrangements
- Restructuring and shareholder arrangement advice
How we approach it
Establish what the decision actually is
Advisory engagements go wrong when the deliverable is a report rather than a decision. We start from what you have to decide and what would change your mind.
Test the numbers before building on them
Valuations and diligence conclusions inherit the quality of the underlying records. Where those records are weak we say so in the report rather than presenting a spurious precision.
Settle the exchange control position early
For cross-border work, whether your authorised dealer can process the transaction and what documentation it will require is a threshold question. It should be answered before terms are agreed, not after.
State the limitations plainly
Every report records what we did, what we did not do, and what our conclusions depend on. Advisory work that hides its assumptions is worse than none.
Frameworks and bodies involved
- Exchange Control Act [Chapter 22:05] and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe directives, applied through authorised dealers
- Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06] provisions on withholding taxes and related-party transactions
- Double taxation agreements in force between Zimbabwe and its treaty partners
- Companies and Other Business Entities Act [Chapter 24:31] on restructuring and shareholder arrangements
- SADC-region considerations where a client trades or holds assets across borders
Common questions
It depends almost entirely on the state of the target’s records. A well-kept set of books can be worked through in a few weeks; poor records can double that. We give an estimate after a short scoping review rather than at first contact.
Yes, and we will be explicit about the basis of valuation and its limitations, because in a contested setting those are the points that will be challenged. Where the matter is in litigation we work alongside your legal advisers.
Four things, before the payment: that a written agreement exists and reflects reality, that the amount has a defensible basis, that your authorised dealer will process it with the documentation you hold, and what withholding tax applies and whether treaty relief is available.
Need help with financial advisory?
Tell us where you currently stand. We will come back with a scope, a fee basis and an honest view of whether we are the right firm for it.