Analyst - Strategy & Investments

Role & responsibilities:

Strategy and market analysis:

- Support the development and periodic refresh of the Groups corporate strategy and 2030 plan.

- Conduct market, competitor and industry analysis across packaging and adjacent sectors to inform strategic choices.

- Assess new geographies and segments, covering market attractiveness, competitive landscape, route to market, and fit with Group capability.

- Compare growth routes such as organic build, partnership, joint venture or acquisition on a consistent analytical basis.

- Prepare Board papers, investor materials and strategy presentations.

Investments and business cases:

- Build and maintain the financial models, business plans and valuations on which investments are assessed.

- Prepare business cases and financial feasibility analysis for greenfield investments, capacity expansion and market entry.

- Apply the Groups stage gate mechanism and confirm that returns and risk metrics meet investment criteria before approval is sought.

- Lead financial due diligence analysis on investment opportunities, and review and challenge the work produced by external advisors.

- Support the full investment cycle through to completion, coordinating advisors across diligence streams and supporting legal counsel on commercial and financial terms.

- Engage counterparty shareholders, finance and management teams across jurisdictions to gather information and test assumptions.

Strategic projects and portfolio tracking:

- Maintain the Group strategic project portfolio, covering status, milestones, owners, dependencies and risks.

- Track approved projects and investments against their business case and flag deviations in cost, schedule or returns.

- Support value creation and integration planning where investments complete, and track delivery against the original case.

Preferred candidate profile:

Essential:

- 3 to 5 years in financial due diligence, transaction services, valuation or corporate finance at a Big 4 or comparable firm, in a client facing capacity.

- Qualified Chartered Accountant.

- Strong financial modelling capability, with the ability to build a full business model and valuation from first principles rather than only maintaining existing templates.

- Solid hands on financial due diligence experience.

- Experience of at least two buy side transactions, with a clear grasp of the deal cycle.

- Advanced Excel and strong written English.

- Hands on use of AI tools in analytical work, including document and data extraction, research synthesis, drafting and review, with the judgement to know where output must be verified, and a willingness to adopt new tools as the function builds them out.

- Willing to travel internationally at short notice, with travel mainly within EMEA.

Preferred:

- Cross border M&A experience, particularly transactions in MENA or Europe.

- Exposure to market, competitor or feasibility analysis alongside financial work.

- Manufacturing, industrial, FMCG or packaging exposure.

- Exposure to emerging market transactions and multi jurisdiction deal structures.

Competencies:

- Strong analytical and quantitative reasoning skills, with the ability to interrogate financial data and identify what is driving a result.

- Sound commercial judgement in separating material issues from noise in a diligence finding or a business case.

- Articulate in writing and in person, and able to present and defend analysis before senior internal and external audiences.

- Comfortable working with incomplete or inconsistent data and explicit about assumptions and their basis.

- Able to run concurrent workstreams and hold to deadlines under transaction pressure.

- Discretion and judgement in handling confidential transaction information.