Finance Manager (Trading & Commercial)

at  EP UK Investments

An opportunity has arisen to recruit a Finance Manager. This is a key role in supporting the Commercial and Trading teams through analysis and understanding of financial performance in the Northern Ireland assets, with a clear focus on understanding, analysing and driving commercial value through finance insight.
The role also takes the lead in establishing a robust link between commercial activity and financial performance for monthly actuals and forecasting of gross margin, generating ideas for value creation through projects and business cases, as well as identifying opportunities to optimise EP’s financial position and mitigate risks through collaboration with the Trading and Commercial teams.
Key Responsibilities
Reporting to the Head of Finance – Northern Ireland, the key responsibilities and duties will include:

Business Partnering

• Supporting the Head of Finance and Commercial teams on the financial aspects of regulatory matters as required.
• Supporting the Commercial and Trading teams on understanding performance, creating ideas for driving value and playing a lead role in optimising outcomes on joint projects such as USPC submissions and VOM reviews.
• Implementing and maintaining high levels of business partnering with key stakeholders to understand impacts on relevant Gross Margin areas for reforecast including fuel supply, planned and unplanned outages etc.
• Identifying opportunities / risks within the NI assets and working closely with the Commercial, Trading and site teams to manage these appropriately.

Forecasting / Budgeting

• Maintaining and developing a robust monthly reforecasting process at Gross Margin level, understanding key drivers.
• Collaborating with the Commercial and Trading teams to create the five-year Gross Margin plan, including preparation of associated packs and commentary.
• Monitoring and reviewing spend against the business plan, investigating variances and flagging risks and opportunities.
• Understanding the cashflow and working capital movements and support the Finance Manager (NI) in ensuring these are reflective of the latest gross margin positions.

Financial Reporting

• Lead on completion of gross margin results – posting of revenue and costs, with supporting analysis and proposals to add value to commercial and trading strategies.
• Preparing and presenting analysis of monthly performance including Day Ahead, Balancing Market, constraint, GT margins, providing detailed insight into each respective element including alignment to trading recoveries.
• Provision of daily and weekly Gross Margin estimates.
• Developing and maintaining models to identify business value opportunities.

Other

• Play a key role in supporting on financial aspects of rolling business activity, such as hedging analysis and carbon trading.
• Be the finance lead on Unit Specific Price Cap (USPC) applications, VOM reforecasts, investment papers and Commercial elements of business scorecards.
• Providing support to the Commercial team on credit and collateral requirements linked to ongoing trading.
• Other financial support as required.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Background

• Experience of working in a similar business partnering focussed role with clear examples of having delivered value (essential).
• Financial modelling experience (essential).
• Knowledge and application of accounting standards (essential).
• SAP system knowledge (essential).
• Experience of working in an energy, manufacturing or production focussed environment (desirable).
• Experience of working with people remotely (desirable).
• Basic understanding of UK taxation (desirable).

Behaviours

• Highly credible and able to quickly build effective working relationships (essential).
• Strong excel skills and ability to understand complex models and analysis (essential).
• Ability to interrogate and interpret data and provide solutions (essential).
• Excellent communicator and strong business partnering skills (essential).
• Strong presentational skills (written and verbal) (essential).
• Strong time management and organisation skills, with the ability to prioritise (essential).

Qualifications

• Qualified accountant (ACA) with demonstrable post qualification experience (essential).
• Qualified to Degree level or equivalent (desirable).

Equality Monitoring
We are an Equal Opportunities Employer. We do not discriminate on grounds of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, age, disability, race, religious belief or political opinion. We practice equality of opportunity in employment and select the best person for the job.
We have a comprehensive Equal Opportunities Policy, which is based on equality of opportunity and the merit principle. The company is committed to appointing the best person for the job irrespective of personal factors that are not relevant to the performance of the job. In accordance with our EP NI Equal Opportunities Policy the Company welcomes applications from all sections of the community and especially from women and the Roman Catholic Community recognising their underrepresentation in the workforce.
Under the Fair Employment and Treatment (NI) Order 1998, registered employers in Northern Ireland have a legal duty to monitor the gender and community background composition of their workforce and those applying to fill vacancies.
All external applicants will be requested to provide monitoring information indicating your gender and community background to demonstrate our commitment to equality of opportunity in employment and our monitoring and reporting requirements.
Please note that providing this information is not mandatory. This information is collated for monitoring purposes only and is not used to form any recruitment or employment decision.
If you do not complete this part of the application, we are encouraged to use the “residuary” method, which means that we can make a determination on the basis of personal information on file/application form.
Note: it is a criminal offence under the legislation for a person to give false information in connection with the preparation of the monitoring return.
About EP UK Investments Ltd
EPUK Investments Ltd (EPUKI) is the UK division of Energetický a průmyslový holding (EPH), a leading energy group of over 70 companies that owns and operates assets across Europe. EPH group employs circa 24,000 people internationally, owns €30.5bn of assets, generating €37.1bn of revenue and an EBITDA of €4.3bn.
EPUKI was established in 2015 as the strategic platform for expanding the EPH group into the UK energy market. Since launching, EPUKI has made several acquisitions and developed a number of new opportunities and now owns multiple renewable and flexible power generating assets in the UK and Ireland.
EPUKI has grown rapidly to revenues ~£3.5bn and EBITDA ~£300m. We pride ourselves on an entrepreneurial culture and flat leadership structure where individuals (wherever they are in the organisation) can make a real impact on our business.

Our aim is to enable the UK and Ireland low carbon transition through provision of flexible and reliable energy supply. To achieve this, we will:

• develop, construct and acquire the right assets to support the transformation of the energy system;
• invest in our people and our assets to best respond to the changing needs of our sector;
• continuously challenge ourselves to identify opportunities, build our knowledge and develop innovative solutions.

EPUKI is one of the largest independent generators in the UK and Ireland, with an asset base that covers multiple technologies and a range of revenue streams; these include fully merchant baseload and peaking plant and index traded baseload plants, providing a range of system services across the energy and balancing spectrum.
Despite its significant market presence, EPUKI has a flat structure with fast paced decision-making ability enabling better optimisation of market positions. The market continues to evolve and develop as the UK and Irish governments drive towards Net Zero with increasing challenges of renewables penetration, introduction of hydrogen and other new technologies.

Please refer the Job description for details