ABOUT STEVE ROOMS
The dealmaker
who brings clarity
to every deal.
Qualified (ACMA) accountant. Former PLC CFO. Active M&A advisor.
Steve Rooms has spent over two decades inside real deals - and built
Dealwise Advisory to share what he has learned.
ACMA
QUALIFIED
ACCOUNTANT
(ACMA)
20+
YEARS IN FINANCE
AND M&A
PLC
FORMER CFO
UK-LISTED COMPANY
5
COUNTRIES OPERATED
AT CFO LEVEL
Multi
SECTOR ACQUISITION
EXPERIENCE
Worldwide
ADVISING ACROSS THE WORLD
ON THIS PAGE
The beginning - numbers, not theories
Steve Rooms is an accountant through ACMA - one of the world's most
demanding professional routes into finance. But what shaped his thinking wasn't the exams. It
was getting inside real businesses and understanding how money actually moves through
them.
From early in his career, Steve gravitated toward the commercial side of finance - not just
reporting the numbers, but using them to drive decisions. The question that always drove him
wasn't "what does the P&L say?". It was "what does this tell us about what to do next?"
"The numbers tell a story. Most people read the headline. The insight
is in the footnotes."
The PLC years - CFO at scale
Steve spent a significant part of his career working as CFO for a UK publicly listed company with operations across five countries: the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Morocco. It was here that his understanding of commercial finance reached a different level.
Operating at board level across multiple jurisdictions meant dealing with everything: complex group structures, multi-currency reporting, acquisition integration, cross border employment, banking relationships, investor presentations and the commercial pressures of a public market. It's an education you cannot get from a text book.
It also sharpened something else: the ability to cut through complexity and give a board or leadership team what they actually need - clear numbers, honest analysis and a recommendation that can act on.
EARLY CAREER
ACMA qualification & commercial finance
ACMA qualification, building expertise in financial reporting, business analysis and commercial decision-making
GROWTH PHASE
CFO - UK PLC advisory & entrepreneurial ownership
Board-level finance across UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Morocco. Multi-currency, multi-entity, public market reporting.
TRANSITION
Move into M&A advisory & entrepreneurial ownership
Combining CFO-level financial expertise with active dealmaking - acquiring, improving and preparing businesses for sale.
TODAY
Dealwise Advisory & portfolio businesses
Active M&A advisor, acquisition entrepreneur and founder of Dealwise Advisory - the education and advisory platform for people who want to understand deals.
Into M&A - doing deals, not just advising on them
The move into M&A wasn't a pivot - it was a natural progression. Steve had already been involved in acquisitions at CFO level; identifying targets, running financial due diligence, structuring transactions and integrating acquired businesses. What changed was making it the centre of his work.
What sets Steve apart from many advisers is that he isn't just advising on deals - he is also doing them himself. He has been involved across multiple sectors including accountancy, automotive, leisure, home appliances, motor cycling and advisory services - acquiring businesses, improving them operationally and financially and preparing them for growth and eventual sale.
That dual perspective - advisor and active acquirer - changes how he thinks. When you are the buyer, due diligence isn't just a process. It's the difference between a good investment and a costly mistake.
"I have sat on both sides of the table. That changes how you advise. You stop theorising and start thinking about what you would actually do if it was your own deal."
Steve's advisory work spans the full deal lifecycle; pre-acquisition analysis, business valuation, deal structuring and negotiation, due diligence, post-completion integration and preparing businesses for sale. He brings the same CFO-level rigour to a SME acquisition that he would have applied to a board-level corporate transaction.
Why Dealwise - the gap most advisors leave
Dealwise Advisory was built to close a gap Steve noticed throughout his career; the people who most need quality M&A thinking - business owners, first-time acquirers, acquisition entrepreneurs, are exactly the people who historically couldn't access it.
Quality M&A advice was expensive jargon-heavy, and often delivered by people who advised on deals but never did them themselves. Steve saw people overpaying for businesses they didn't fully understand, making structural mistakes that cost them for years, and selling without preparing - leaving significant value on the table.
Dealwise is the answer to that problem. An advisory and education platform built around a single idea; that clarity is the most valuable thing you can give someone in a deal. Clear numbers. Clear analysis. Clear recommendations. No jargon, no hedging, no theoretical frameworks that don't translate to real decisions.
Today - advisor, acquirer and educator
Steve currently divides his time between active advisory work with clients, running and growing his own portfolio businesses and building the Dealwise Education platform for acquisition entrepreneurs and business owners
He works with a deliberately selective client base - taking on engagements where he can genuinely add value and where the client is serious about getting the deal right, not just getting the deal done. He also delivers webinars, online courses and community content through Dealwise and his Dealwise community - including the 90 Day Challenge. He brings CFO-level thinking to a wider audience.
He is based in the UK and advises clients remotely and in-person across the country.
Areas of expertise
Steve's core advisory capability spans the full spectrum of M&A and commercial finance:
Business valuation
Financial due diligence
Working capital analysis
Exit readiness & sale preparation
Group structure & tax efficiency
CFO & strategic finance
Board & investor reporting
Negotiation strategy
Deal structuring
Quality of earnings review
Earn-out & deferred consideration
EBITDA normalisation
Acquisition integration
Financial modelling
Post-acquisition value creation
Financial engineering
HOW STEVE WORKS
Three principles that drive every engagement
Good M&A advise isn't about telling people what they want to hear. It's about giving them what they need to make the right decision - even when that's uncomfortable.
These are the three things Steve brings to every client engagement.
01
Clarity first
Before any recommendation, any structure, any number - Steve works to ensure the client genuinely understands what they're looking at. Decisions made without clarity are just guesses with paperwork.
02
Commercial honesty
If the deal doesn't make sense, Steve will say so. If the valuation is too high, or the structure is wrong, or the red flags outweigh the upside - a client needs to hear it, not hear around it.
03
Real-world thinking
Every recommendation is grounded in what actually works in practice. Not textbook theory. Not what sounds sophisticated.
What a commercially experienced buyer or seller would actually do.
THE DEALWISE ECOSYSTEM
Advisory, education and active ownership
Dealwise Advisory sits at the centre of Steve's advisory work, but it's part of a broader ecosystem of businesses, brands and ventures built around the same principles; commercial clarity, value creation and long-term ownership.
Steve's involvement across multiple businesses - both as operator and acquirer - isn't separate from his advisory work. It's what makes it credible. He's not advising from theory. He's advising from experience he's living right now.
Dealwise Advisory
M&A advisory for buyers, sellers & operators
Dealwise community
Education platform - courses, webinars and community
The Outdoor Group
Leisure and outdoor business portfolio strategy
Proffix Limited
Accountancy and professional services
Advisory work that's grounded in practice
Steve doesn't just advise on acquisitions - he makes them. Every engagement benefits from the perspective of someone who ha real capital at risk in real deals.
Education built from real deal experience
The frameworks , checklists and models in Steve's courses and lead magnets aren't academic constructs. They are tools that he uses on actual deals.
A portfolio mindset, not a transactional one
Steve thinks of long-term value creation - not just getting deals done, but building businesses worth owning and (eventually) , worth selling.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
"Steve found issues in the
working capital that would
have cost us significantly more
than his fee to discover post-
completion. That's what real
due diligence looks like."
Mark Harrison Private investor
"Steve's exit readiness scorecard audit was a wake-up call - but it also gave me a clear roadmap to add real value before going to market. I wish I'd done it two years earlier."
"The deal structuring advice turned a transaction that was falling apart into something both sides were happy with. That's not something you get from a generic advisor."
"Finally someone who explains the numbers in plain English and tells you what it actually means for the deal. Rare combination of financial depth and commercial straight-talking."
Ready to work with
someone who actually
does deals?
Book a free 30-minute discovery call. No pitch, no
pressure - just a straight conversation about your
situation.
