Barber leaves Helix

John Barber, the managing director of placement agents Helix Associates, will join Bridgepoint as a partner leading the firm’s investor services team, taking over from the retiring Graham Dewhirst. Barber, who will arrive in January 2007, will also serve on the operating and investment committees of Bridgepoint. Before joining Helix in 1997, he co-founded Yucatan Foods in Santa Monica, California, a speciality food company where he arranged several rounds of equity and debt financings. He previously worked at WSGP Partners, a private equity firm and at Morgan Stanley, in corporate finance and in its offices in New York, London and Sydney.