Mike Corless

The Course Instructor is a qualified chartered accountant, who began his career as an auditor for Grant Thornton International. He moved to Ernst & Young as a senior manager in the corporate advisory team in 1986, working on major acquisitions, disposals, IPOs and insolvency/restructuring transactions.

In 1989 he joined Threadneedle Asset Management as an analyst, becoming a fund manager specialising in income funds in 1991. He achieved top quartile performance and was a member of the team that won the Sunday Times Unit Trust Group of the year award in 1992. In 1996 he joined Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (“SWIP”) as a director in the UK Equity team and then head of UK Equities, again specialising in come funds. In 2000 he was appointed head of UK Equities on the merger of Hill Samuel Asset Management and SWIP and he led the integration of the UK Equity teams. He covered a variety of industrial sectors as an analyst, and was recognised as a top five buy side banking analyst by Reuters.

In 2001 he joined HSBC Asset Management as European Head of Equity Research, managing a team of analysts in Paris and London tasked with developing a new research team and research process. He built the team in London and led the integration of the analyst team based in Dusseldorf, introducing a cash flow based corporate valuation process. In 2004 he was appointed Global Head of Equity Research, responsible for 60 global equity research analysts and 40 global credit analysts. He developed a global valuation and research process, training local analysts in Europe, the US and Asia in its use. In his time at HSBC he specialised in analysing the global resources sector.

In 2006 he joined a professional training company as the head of investment banking and investment management. He managed a team of 12 trainers and built a blue chip customer base. His experience included managing major graduate programmes for investment banking, investment management and private wealth clients, training graduate to managing director level participants and advising clients on their training requirements for accountancy, corporate finance and valuation, investment management and private wealth training.

In his role as a chartered accountant he was a member of the committee advising the UK Accounting Standards Board on corporate reporting via the implementation of the Operating and Financial Review. He is a freelance writer for various investment publications and provides accounting, corporate finance and investment management advice to companies on a freelance basis. His clients have included HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Allen & Overy, JP Morgan, Barclays Bank, Barclays Wealth, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Standard Chartered, Ernst & Young, Price Waterhouse and Schroders.