Deferred Consideration and Earn-Out Accounting Adviser

The mandate

This advisory appointment is organised around a precise question: are deferred and contingent consideration arrangements being accounted for from their enforceable terms, post-combination conditions and current evidence, rather than from transaction labels or desired outcomes? The Adviser will challenge selected conclusions and subsequent remeasurement governance. Negotiation and valuation production are not part of the role.

Two days each week will support a weekly case window during the first month, then fortnightly reviews and two planned governance sessions monthly. Management will provide executed agreements, approval records, relevant employment terms, specialist valuations and its proposed accounting. The Adviser may identify missing facts but will not reconstruct incomplete legal documentation or certify valuation inputs.

The work must distinguish consideration transferred from separate remuneration or settlement of pre-existing relationships, and classification from subsequent measurement. It will test service conditions, forfeiture effects, payment caps, settlement alternatives, modification events and the evidence behind probability assessments. Advice will state both the preferred interpretation and facts that could change it.

The Chief Accounting Officer owns all conclusions, entries and assurance interactions. There is no line authority, approval right or power for the Adviser to communicate with counterparties. Legal, tax, valuation and accounting owners must remain distinct even when their analyses depend on the same terms.

After four months, management should have a complete event calendar, a stronger review checklist, decision records for selected arrangements and a repeatable remeasurement protocol. Conflicts involving transaction parties, valuation providers, advisers, executives or financial interests must be declared before named documents are released.

What you will own

• Screen deferred payment terms for accounting questions involving consideration, remuneration, pre-existing relationships and settlement rights.
• Challenge liability-versus-equity classification and identify contractual events that could alter the conclusion.
• Review remeasurement analyses for complete facts, supportable probability evidence and consistent treatment of outcome changes.
• Establish an event calendar linking performance periods, service conditions, payment dates, modifications and review ownership.
• Improve management papers by requiring legal facts, specialist inputs, alternatives, contrary evidence and decision authority.
• Advise when additional legal or valuation work is necessary without assuming those professional responsibilities.
• Record accepted and rejected advice with reconsideration triggers for future reporting dates.
• Decline negotiation, valuation production, entry posting or counterparty communication requests.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate senior accounting analysis of contingent consideration and earn-out arrangements under IFRS or US GAAP.
• Describe a payment labelled as purchase consideration that you concluded was wholly or partly separate remuneration.
• Show a classification or remeasurement conclusion changed by a service, settlement or modification term.
• Evidence effective challenge of probability assumptions and specialist valuations without acting as the valuer.
• Explain how you kept legal, tax and accounting responsibilities distinct around the same agreement.
• Provide an example of advice that was not adopted and how you documented the defensible alternative.
• Identify relevant transaction conflicts you have managed or which would require recusal.

Working terms and boundaries

• The four-month retainer covers two days weekly and the agreed weekly-to-fortnightly case cadence.
• Management supplies executed documents, specialist outputs and its initial analysis before review begins.
• Advice excludes negotiation, valuation opinions, tax conclusions, entries, approvals and counterparty contact.
• Additional arrangements or urgent attendance require written reprioritisation or fee amendment.
• Conflict clearance occurs before transaction parties or restricted terms are disclosed.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 7 October 2026. Mandate reference FNA-ADV-2026-SEL-27.