Dave Thayser

Dave is a specialist in Mergers & Acquisitions (“M&A”), having worked in corporate finance and general financial consulting for most of his working life, primarily at Ernst & Young.

Dave holds an MBA from Manchester Business School as well as being a qualified Chartered Accountant (South Africa) and an FCMA.

Currently he:

consults independently on all aspects of M&A, including valuations, lectures on M&A at GIBS and in other forums, and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committees of the Competition Tribunal. Dave’s work experience includes:

Ten years working as Business Analyst and Financial Manager for an engineering contracting firm involved in multi-billion Rand contracts. This period provided him with important practical experience on which to draw before returning to the profession in 1988. Twenty-five years at EY, thirteen of these as a director/partner of the corporate finance arm (Ernst & Young Transaction Advisory Services). While participating in all aspects of Corporate Finance work, such as due diligence reviews, transaction structuring and transaction implementation, his primary responsibility was financial performance assessment and business valuations.

For nineteen years at EY, Dave was also responsible for the production of the widely-acclaimed annual research publication on Merger & Acquisition Activity.

Particular areas of interest to Dave include:

Advising on M&A transactions Business valuations Financial education Financial research