BOI appoints UK head of acquisition finance

Bank of Ireland has appointed Peter Dunsby of CIBC World Markets as its new UK managing director, global acquisition finance.

The appointment follows a restructuring of Bank of Ireland’s London-based acquisitions finance team earlier this year. Dunsby will be based in London and will have responsibility for arranging private equity sponsor-backed transactions in the UK, Benelux, Scandinavia, Iberia and Italy.

Prior to joining Bank of Ireland, Dunsby was executive director of European leveraged finance at CIBC World Markets and before that was at Royal Bank of Scotland in London and Paris and Deloitte & Touche in the UK.

David Walsh, head of European acquisition finance at Bank of Ireland said that Dunsby’s more than 10 years of experience in arranging transactions on a pan-European basis would be “invaluable to us in pursuing our ambitions to focus on larger lead arranging opportunities across the UK and Europe. We currently have over 80 professionals in acquisitions finance working across our global offices and, by year end, we expect to have more than 25 professionals focused solely on originating and executing lead arrange transactions across the UK and Europe, an increase of 40 percent on our current numbers in these locations”.

Walsh added that Bank of Ireland has shifted its focus from smaller club-type transactions to leading larger deals such as David Montgromery’s Mecom’s purchase of Norway’s Orkla Media (€625m debt) last June; Bridgepoint’s acquisition of French casino operator Moliflor (€390m debt) in November 2005; and Activa Capital’s secondary buyout of Lion Capital’s French jam maker Materne (€106m) debt last October.