Ian Latham recently relocated from Baker Tilly’s Stoke office to head up corporate finance in Liverpool. He has more than 20 years of experience specialising in mergers and acquisitions

8am: It’s Tuesday morning and after taking a call from a solicitor in relation to a deal due to complete at the end of the week I check my emails on the way into the office.

9am: First meeting of the day – and it’s an internal briefing with the team.

Though the level of deal activity last year was relatively low, towards the end of 2009, there has been a distinct upturn in mergers and acquisitions activity during the first two quarters of 2010.

Sentiment does seem to have remained positive and we are particularly busy with a number of disposal mandates and management buyout (MBO) opportunities.

We run through the status of all projects and discuss the opportunities that have cropped up over the last week.

10.30am: Conference call with an owner of a large distribution firm who completed an MBO five years ago. We’re now in the process of selling the business for him and currently finalising the information memorandum as well as discussing the targets who have expressed an interest.

I give him an update on progress and he discusses recent trading performance.

11.30am: A local team of corporate bankers has asked to meet me along with some of the other partners for a coffee.

There have been a lot of changes to the banking community across the city recently, so keeping in touch and up to date with new developments and initiatives is crucial.

12.45pm: Return a call from a colleague in Manchester and head off for a meeting at our Warrington office.