Coba Boosts PwC’s Transaction Services –

PricewaterhouseCoopers has expanded its transaction services team with the acquisition of Coba Group, a 30-strong strategy consulting business that specifically targets the private equity industry. Coba’s team will join the “strategy” team within PricewaterhouseCooper transaction services, which services both private equity and corporate clients.

PricewaterhouseCooper’s existing strategy team had around 20 members and was headed by partner, David Packford. Packford will have Nick Hewitt, Alistair Rimmer and Mark Parry join him as partner in the enlarged group.

Coba Group was borne out of Renaissance Worldwide, a consultancy firm that involved in traditional consultancy and strategy consultancy. It was bought by a firm that was primarily interested in the traditional consulting business and so eventually, as a non-core business, Coba Group was spun out by Hewitt et al in 1999.

Coba Group’s team is largely based in the U.K. although it has some people in France and Singapore and Hong Kong. This means that the bulk of the team will come under the leadership of Paul Rawlinson, who heads PricewaterhouseCoopers’ U.K. transaction services team. Glynn Barker, also based in the U.K., is the global head of PricewaterhouseCooper’s Transaction Services team. Rawlinson notes that Transaction Services has grown 30% per annum for the last few years in terms of revenue generated for the firm.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ transaction services team is made up of a further four teams in addition to the strategy team. Those teams are responsible for bid support work, financial due diligence, commercial and market due diligence, and operational due diligence and operational improvement work (which is largely post-completion of a transaction.)