Brecht Carchon

Education

From business school to economics and finance, always with something real alongside.

I studied the same bachelor as my brother, SME Management & Entrepreneurship, while we were running our store. My bachelor thesis looked at how large companies manage working capital in times of geopolitical uncertainty.

In Madrid I am taking the next step, from business to economics and finance, with a specialisation in Fintech & AI. And just as in my bachelor, I am putting it into practice: this time on a live M&A deal.

Expected July 2027

Master in Applied Economics, Finance Track

IE University, Madrid

Term 1: Fundamentals 6 courses
  • Macroeconomics
  • Microeconomics
  • International Economics: Trade & Finance
  • Statistics & Econometrics
  • Public Economics & Taxation
  • Introduction to Financial Markets
Term 2: Policies, Products & Operations 6 courses
  • Financial Markets & Institutions
  • Industrial Economics & Game Theory
  • Macroeconometrics
  • Microeconometrics
  • Data Science for Economics
  • Labor Economics
Term 3 core and specialisation courses
  • Strategic Management & Leadership
  • Project Analysis & Implementation
  • Country Economic Analysis
  • Project Policy & Implementation
  • Project Valuation
My chosen specialisation

Fintech & AI

Where finance meets technology: how AI and digital innovation are changing financial strategy and infrastructure, with hands-on work.

  • Machine learning
  • Generative AI
  • Neural networks
  • Python
  • Algorithmic trading
  • DeFi
  • Blockchain

Topics the track covers.

Until June 2026

Professional Bachelor in Business Management, SME Management & Entrepreneurship

UCLL University of Applied Sciences, Leuven

Bachelor Thesis: Working Capital Management in Large Companies During Periods of Geopolitical Uncertainty.

Practical work

November 2026 to present

IE M&A Lab

IE University, Madrid

An eight-week, practice-oriented M&A programme in which student teams advise on a live transaction, supervised by an M&A Lab tutor. Our team advises the owners of a Belgian agricultural business on the sell side of a transaction of around €20 million: a full share sale of the operating company, combined with the sale of its farm real estate and family farmland. The deal is under NDA.

~€20m
transaction, sell side
~230
seller documents reviewed
31
page factbase built
17
red flags identified
1Due diligence

Three years of financials, deeds, lease ledgers, offtake and energy contracts and an appraisal report, turned into one factbase. The red flags included a shareholder loan, double counting in the asking price, unwritten land leases, and asbestos and permitting gaps.

2Financial analysis

Normalised three years of financials for a company that took over the farming operations only recently, and mapped bank debt, leases and shareholder loans for the bridge from enterprise to equity value.

3Valuation

Reconciled the seller’s asset-based valuation with a non-binding offer from a buyer consortium, block by block: land, real estate against an independent appraisal, machinery and lease rights.

4Deal structuring

Advised on the letter of intent together with our law teammates: cash-free transfer, leakage protection, exclusivity and a liability cap, ahead of the buyer’s signing deadline.

5The team

Four students, two from economics and management master’s programmes and two in law, working alongside the seller’s accountant and agricultural lawyer. The programme ends with a pitch to a jury.

Academic year 2024 to 2025

Small Business Project: Bloomwear

UCLL, five-student team

It started with a brainstorm. Our team of five considered writing a book, then something with music, before we landed on T-shirts. The T-shirt market is crowded, so we wanted a shirt people would remember, with a story behind it.

The answer was Bloomwear: original flower designs by a Belgian artist, and with every shirt a packet of seeds of the flower printed on it, so you can grow the flower you wear. Our first idea was tree seeds, but that proved impractical. Flowers were easier to plant and fitted the designs.

In the team I was the "financial navigator". I was responsible for the financial plan: an opening balance sheet built on the five equal contributions of the team members, a four-month revenue and cost forecast, and the cash flow analysis.

  • Marigold
  • Sunflower
  • Cornflower
€35
planned price per shirt
€13
purchase cost per shirt
200
shirts: the sales goal for June 2025
20%
of planned profit to charity
Bloomwear T-shirts with the Marigold design
Four Bloomwear T-shirts with the Sunflower, Cornflower and Marigold designs
Wearing Bloomwear T-shirts in a greenhouse