Why Chartered Accountants in India Make Excellent Deal Makers

It is easy to forget how much of a deal the CA syllabus already covers (ICAI, 2023). A few examples:

The CA Final paper on Advanced Financial Management teaches how to value a business, and has a full chapter on mergers, acquisitions and restructuring. It also covers startup finance and risk (ICAI, 2026).

Financial Reporting at the Final level covers Ind AS, including how business combinations are accounted for.

The Intermediate paper on Corporate and Other Laws covers the Companies Act, 2013. This law governs how shares are issued and transferred, and how companies merge.

The direct and indirect tax papers deal with the tax consequences of how a transaction is structured. In practice, this is often what decides whether a deal happens at all.

Integrated Business Solutions, the last Final paper, brings all of this together through case studies.

CAs can also register with IBBI as registered valuers. My point is not that the syllabus turns anyone into a banker. It is that the technical foundation is already in place, which is more than most people entering investment banking start with.

A business owner might meet a banker once or twice. He speaks to his CA every month, often for decades. By the time a deal comes up, the CA has usually seen the business through its first loan, its first factory, and sometimes a change of generation.

This matters most at exactly the moment a deal becomes possible. Selling a business or bringing in an investor is among the largest decisions an owner will make. It is natural that he talks it through with his CA first.

Most practising CAs already do much of the work of a debt raise. They prepare CMA data and project reports, which banks and NBFCs need before sanctioning a loan. They usually explain the numbers to the lender and answer the credit team's questions.

I would describe this as debt syndication in everything but name. What is usually missing is access to a wider set of lenders, and a fee that reflects the work being done.

An investor can spend weeks in due diligence learning what the CA already knows. Which customers actually pay on time? Where are the tax exposures? How does the family hold its shares? What needs fixing before an outsider looks closely? This makes the CA well suited to preparing a company for a deal. He can raise problems early, before an investor finds them and the talks get harder.

For a small CA firm, the main barrier to deal work has been paperwork. That means the information memorandum (IM), the financial model, the comparables and the diligence reports. Producing these to an institutional standard used to require a team of analysts.

This has changed quickly. AI can now produce credible first drafts of most of these documents in hours. The CA still has to check them and apply judgement, and I would be wary of anyone who skips that step. But he no longer needs a team to do the drafting.

If execution becomes easier, the obvious question is what becomes scarce instead. My answer is access: knowing the business owners, knowing the investors, and being able to connect the two. That, increasingly, is the core skill in investment banking in India.

Bankers already understand this. Their time is limited, and no amount of effort lets them match twenty years of trust with a particular promoter. So many of them already work with the promoter's CA, as a trusted advisor, to win deals.

A CA network helps investment banking India by giving bankers and funds a direct route to business owners. A single CA knows a few dozen owners well. Connect thousands of CAs across cities, and bankers and funds can reach companies they would never find on their own, with each owner's consent. Each CA also brings trust, reliable financials and knowledge of the business.

Until recently, a ₹30 crore deal rarely justified the time and cost of a full banking team. That is starting to change. AI has lowered the cost of preparing a deal, and investors are more open to smaller companies. In 2025, the number of private equity and venture capital deals in India rose by about 10% (Bain & Company, 2026).

A large bank can plausibly know every ₹1,000 crore company in India. It cannot know every ₹30 crore company. As smaller deals become more viable for private equity India funds, the people who know those companies become more valuable. In most cases, that person is the CA.

Chartered accountants in India are well placed because they already know the smaller companies that funds want. Private equity funds need a steady supply of these companies, and they are hard to find through the usual channels. The CA knows their numbers, their owners and whether they are ready for an outside investor. That makes him a natural first call for a fund looking for its next deal.

GST automation, pre-filled income tax returns and AIS/TIS statements have absorbed hours that used to be billable.

Higher turnover thresholds have taken many small businesses out of detailed compliance (Income Tax Department, 2026).

The profession keeps growing, with 4.23 lakh members (ICAI, 2025), so more firms compete for the same routine work.

I want to be careful not to overstate this. The profession is not shrinking, and areas such as GST disputes, valuation and advisory work are growing. But routine compliance earns less per client each year, and I do not see a reason for that to reverse. Deal work offers new revenue from clients the CA already serves. Even one or two transactions a year can make a real difference to a small firm.

Bankers are concentrated in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. Business owners are not. India's 7.83 crore Udyam-registered businesses (PIB, 2026) are spread across Rajkot, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Tiruppur, Nashik and thousands of smaller towns.

CAs are already in those places. ICAI had five regional councils and 164 branches across India as of 2019 (Wikipedia, 2026), and practising CAs work in towns of every size. A CA network can therefore act as a sourcing layer that reaches companies no metro-based bank is likely to find on its own.

111 SME IPOs listed on NSE Emerge in FY26, raising ₹5,363 crore. The number of issues was 32% lower than in FY25 (ANI, 2026).

The fall followed tighter SEBI rules from March 2025. An SME now needs an operating profit (EBITDA) of at least ₹1 crore in two of the last three years. The offer for sale is capped at 20% of the issue (Investing.com, 2025).

Only a SEBI-registered merchant banker can manage an IPO, and there are 235 of them (SEBI, 2025). What they need is a steady supply of companies that are genuinely ready. The stricter rules mean more preparation: cleaner accounts, better governance and a clear plan for the money raised. A CA is well equipped to help with this. The CA's role is to identify clients who are ready, help them prepare and, with their consent, introduce them to a merchant banker.

Only 41% of registered MSMEs have accessed formal credit (TransUnion CIBIL and SIDBI, 2026).

SIDBI estimates the MSME credit gap at about ₹30 lakh crore, or 24% of demand (SIDBI, 2025).

NBFCs now account for about 26% of MSME lending by value (TransUnion CIBIL and SIDBI, 2026).

NBFCs want MSME borrowers, but they have limited branch networks and often see a file only after a bank has declined it. A CA who has already prepared a client's CMA data is well placed to close that gap. With the client's consent, the CA can take one good file to several lenders instead of going back to the same bank. That can get the client better terms. The CA should be paid by the client for this advisory work, not by the lender. ICAI does not allow CAs in practice to receive fees or commission from NBFCs and other financial institutions (ICAI Ethical Standards Board, n.d.).

Interest is not the constraint. Of India's roughly 4.23 lakh active CAs, 1,54,552 are in full-time practice and 7,013 in part-time practice. The remaining 2,61,539, about 62% of the profession, are not in practice (ICAI, 2025). Many of them work in corporate finance, consulting and financial services.

I have not been able to find a reliable count of how many CAs work in investment banking specifically. But CAs are a familiar presence in deal teams across India. You find them in Big Four transaction advisory teams, mid-market boutiques, merchant bankers and PE fund finance teams. Young CAs who want a seat in investment banking India already train on valuation, restructuring and company law. A whole industry of courses now exists to help them go further.

So the skills already exist inside the profession. What is missing is a way for practising CAs, the ones who hold the client relationships, to apply those skills to their own clients' deals.

Despite all this, many practising CAs seem to believe investment banking is not for them. They picture metro offices, large teams, polished presentations and investor dinners. It works like a glass wall: they can see what is on the other side, but they do not think they can walk through it.

I think the wall is much thinner than it looks. It helps to compare what a deal actually requires with what a CA already has.

Financial analysis, valuation, tax structuring and legal knowledge are already part of the CA's training.

Client trust and knowledge of the business have been built over years.

Deal documents such as the IM and financial model can now be drafted in hours with AI.

Presentation skills can be learned, and every client meeting is a chance to practise them.

Relationships with investors and bankers grow with each deal, and a good network can speed this up.

Seen this way, a CA does not need to become a different kind of professional. He needs to add two things to what he already has: the ability to present a company clearly, and relationships on the investor side. Neither requires another degree.

AI helps here too, perhaps more than people realise. It can turn a CA's analysis into a clean presentation, draft an investor pitch, and help him rehearse the questions an investor is likely to ask. The technical gap that once justified the glass wall has, to a large extent, closed.

The profession has crossed walls like this before. CAs moved into insolvency work after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, and into valuation once the registered valuer framework came in. I see deal making as a natural next step.

None of these points is decisive on its own. Taken together, though, I think they make a strong case. The CA already has the training, the trust, the knowledge of the business and the reach across India. AI has lowered the paperwork barrier, and smaller deals, where the CA's relationships matter most, are becoming more viable to work on. For CAs who want to take this up, deal making can become a meaningful new revenue stream, built on relationships they already have.

This is why we are building Deal Network: a free, WhatsApp-first network that connects CAs with bankers, NBFCs and funds based on their profiles. A client's name is shared only if the CA chooses to, and only with the client's consent.

This article does not apply to audit clients. Under Section 144 of the Companies Act, 2013, a company's auditor cannot provide investment banking or investment advisory services to that company, its parent company or the companies under its control. The same section also bars accounting, bookkeeping and management services, so preparing an audit client for a deal or an IPO is not permitted either. These limits apply whether the work is done directly or indirectly, including through the auditor's relatives, partners, or any entity the auditor controls or that uses the auditor's name. For audit clients that are not companies, ICAI's independence rules should be checked before taking on deal work. For all clients, CAs in practice must also follow the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 and ICAI's Code of Ethics (Government of India, 1949). They must not share their fees with non-members or accept a share of a non-member agent's professional fees. They must not solicit clients or advertise beyond what ICAI permits, or disclose client information without the client's consent. They also cannot receive fees or commission from NBFCs and other financial institutions. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.

ANI (2026) 'India IPO fundraising hits record Rs 1.8 lakh crore in FY26, small company listing slows: NSE report', ANI News, 22 April.

Bain & Company (2026) India Private Equity Report 2026. Available at: https://www.bain.com/insights/india-private-equity-report-2026/ (Accessed: 24 September 2026).

Government of India (1949) The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949: First and Second Schedules. New Delhi: Government of India.

ICAI (2023) Scheme of Education and Training (New Scheme). New Delhi: Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

ICAI (2025) 76th Annual Report 2024–25. New Delhi: Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

ICAI (2026) Final Course, Paper 2: Advanced Financial Management. Available at: https://www.icai.org/post/19157 (Accessed: 24 September 2026).

ICAI Ethical Standards Board (n.d.) Decisions of the Ethical Standards Board, compiled in '20 recent decisions of ICAI Ethical Standards Board', TaxGuru. Available at: https://taxguru.in/chartered-accountant/20-recent-decisions-icai-ethical-standards-board.html (Accessed: 24 September 2026).

Income Tax Department (2026) Section 44AB, Income-tax Act, 1961. New Delhi: Government of India.

Investing.com (2025) 'SEBI tightens SME IPO rules: profitability criteria, OFS cap introduced', Investing.com India, 11 March.

PIB (2026) Over 7.83 crore enterprises registered on Udyam Registration Portal. New Delhi: Press Information Bureau, Government of India.

SEBI (2025) SEBI Bulletin, October 2025: Table 2, SEBI registered market intermediaries/institutions. Mumbai: Securities and Exchange Board of India.

SIDBI (2025) Understanding Indian MSME Sector: Progress and Challenges. Mumbai: Small Industries Development Bank of India.

TransUnion CIBIL and SIDBI (2026) MSME Pulse, July 2026. Mumbai: TransUnion CIBIL.

Wikipedia (2026) 'Institute of Chartered Accountants of India'. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Chartered_Accountants_of_India (Accessed: 24 September 2026).

The author, Adish Bharadwaj R, is a co-founder of Deal Network, and has 10+ years of experience in investment banking.