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Many sectors are undergoing unprecedented change, with growth increasingly being pursued through transactions such as mergers, acquisitions, divestments, and capital raising.
As deal activity accelerates, the ability for CFOs to identify and manage risk has become fundamental to turning deal ambition into realised value.
The pressure to adapt has intensified across industries. Businesses are reassessing where to invest, what to exit and how to position for future demand – with transactions being the means by which those strategic shifts are often executed.
Energy and resources, for example, is in the middle of a once-in-a-generation reallocation of capital. Decarbonisation is creating entirely new asset classes, critical minerals are drawing strategic and foreign investors, majors are divesting non-core assets, and mid-caps are consolidating for scale.
For CFOs, this means more transactions crossing your desk – as acquirer, vendor, borrower or target – than at any point in the past decade.
The instinct is to treat risk management and growth as a trade-off.
In transactions, the opposite is true.
Risk protection is what makes growth executable. A deal that collapses on funding, stalls on approvals or leaks value after completion consumes the resources and credibility needed for the next opportunity.
Four disciplines protect that downside.
Protect the funding
Especially in energy and resources, growth can be capital-hungry and the capital must fit the asset.
For example, a mine with a finite operating life requires a different financing approach from long term infrastructure, while exposure to commodity prices means lenders will closely assess a business's ability to withstand market downturns. Rehabilitation liabilities and ESG-linked lending terms now affect both leverage capacity and pricing.
The protective move is to treat funding as a strategy rather than an event. This means:
- Testing structure options early
- Keeping competitive tension across bank, bond and private credit markets
- Starting refinancing conversations 12 to 18 months before maturity, while options are still open.
How should the expansion be structured?
Much of the value from a deal is realised or lost during the first 100 days after completion. Gaps in people, systems and controls, unrealised synergies and duplicate finance functions are often all visible months earlier during diligence.
CFOs protect deal value by insisting integration planning begins before signing. A costed 100-day plan, with defined accountability and robust reporting against deal objectives all help turn the investment case into results.
Can the group defend its global tax position?
The risks that reprice deals rarely sit in the financial statements alone. Commercial, operational, regulatory and strategic factors can all affect value – often in ways that only become apparent through targeted diligence.
In energy and resources, for example, these risks may emerge through:
Assumptions about reserves
Assumptions about reserves
Mine plans and closure costs
Rehabilitation provisions
Royalty and petroleum tax exposure
Transition risk
Each has the potential to alter value significantly.
CFOs need to scope diligence against the deal thesis and its value drivers rather than a generic checklist. A red-flag finding should be viewed as diligence doing its job, because it’s far cheaper to reprice or restructure a deal before signing than to address consequences afterwards.
Protect the timetable
Regulatory approvals now drive deal timetables in a number of sectors. Transactions that once depended primarily on commercial negotiation now require businesses to navigate competition, foreign investment, and industry-specific approval processes before completion.
In energy and resources, FIRB scrutiny has intensified for critical minerals, energy infrastructure and sensitive land. Australia's mandatory merger clearance regime (in force since 1 January 2026) means notifiable deals cannot complete without ACCC clearance. Add tenement transfers, environmental consents, native title and change-of-control clauses in offtake and financing agreements, and the path is measured in months.
Map regulatory dependencies early and align the deal timetable to account for the longest approval process, not the shortest.
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The CFO's growth dividend
None of these four disciplines slows growth down.
Done well, they speed growth up: prepared borrowers get better terms, credible diligence protects deal value, and transactions engineered around accurate approval timelines complete when competitors' deals stall.
It also compounds – every well-protected transaction builds the balance sheet strength, lender relationships and board confidence needed for the next one.
The question for every CFO heading into the next deal is simple: which of these four protections would fail you first, and what are you doing about it now?
For a confidential discussion with RSM’s experienced Corporate Finance team about your next transaction, contact your local RSM office.
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Thinking about a new market?
RSM helps growing Australian businesses design the structure before the expansion, so tax supports the strategy rather than surprising it. Speak with our International Tax and Corporate Tax specialists to pressure-test your plan.
Thinking about a new market?
RSM helps growing Australian businesses design the structure before the expansion, so tax supports the strategy rather than surprising it. Speak with our International Tax and Corporate Tax specialists to pressure-test your plan.
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