Chris Heatlie

A Transaction Services partner in the Deals team, I am based in our Manchester office. I specialise in buy-side, sell-side and refinancing due diligence and vendor assist services for private equity and corporate clients and their providers of finance. My area of sector expertise focuses on tech, professional services, travel, leisure, and healthcare. 

I help private equity clients, acquisitive corporates, and vendors, obtain the best value from their deals. This involves helping acquirers understand what they are buying and vendors on how to present their business in the most appropriate way to enable acquirers and funders to obtain the information they need to complete a successful transaction. 

I have specialised in transaction services for over 25 years and undertake around 25 transactions per year. With no one transaction being the same, I regularly leverage the expertise from across BDO specialisms. I enjoy working with a great team who have strong sector experiences, and an ever-expanding ability to manipulate large datasets quickly with our data analytics tools.  

Years of undertaking buy-side due diligence for private equity clients who love data and want to prove an investment thesis means we are very well positioned to work with vendors to ensure that they provide the data that a buyer will want when undertaking sell-side due diligence. 

I get heavily involved in all our projects and use my experience to ensure we are proactive and responsive. We try to anticipate what our clients will need before being asked. As a result, we have a loyal following of clients and referrers who value our work and trust our point of view, and first-time clients usually become repeat clients.   

Outside of work, I spend time with my family and friends, travel, play golf as much as possible (now my kids don’t get out of bed before lunchtime), and as a Scot brought up in the Northeast get carried away with irrational delusions when Newcastle United or the Scottish rugby team have famous victories.