D&T Trans Svcs to KPMG

Deloitte & Touche has lost a core of its transaction services team to KPMG’s private equity business. Four new partners have joined KPMG with their team bringing the total number of hires from Deloitte to 16.

The four partners, Rustom Kharegat, Helen Pratten, Robert Ohrenstein and John Oldcorn, are all transaction services practitioners with a track record of advising private equity clients in the European leveraged buyout market. Deals the team has worked on include; Unique and Voyager Pubs (€3.2bn), Bertelsmann Springer (€1.65bn), Debenhams (€2.6bn), Gala Bingo and Casinos (€1.9bn), Cognis (€2.7bn), Travelodge/Little Chef (€1.1bn), National Car Parks (€1.3bn), and Veba Electronics (€2.7bn.)

Prior to Deloitte, all were at Andersen before Deloitte acquired the group in 2002. Rustom Kharegat was previously partner responsible for UK and European private equity transaction services. He is now global head of large leveraged buyouts at KPMG.

Johannes Weiler, a former transaction services partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, has also joined KPMG Germany as a transaction services partner specialising in private equity. Oliver Tant, global head of private equity at KPMG, said the group already has strong teams on the ground in the UK, France and Italy and is now looking to strengthen its presence in Germany. The London office is already a sizeable business with a group of 100 professionals dedicated entirely to private equity. Tant says the firm is on an expansion drive and the UK practice is looking to increase its revenues to £100m in the next 18 months. At the moment the practice is bringing in about 60% of that amount, according to Tant. “Rustom and his team have an outstanding reputation in the market and I am delighted they have chosen to join our team. They have phenomenal experience in assessing deals in the large LBO market across Europe and will make a huge contribution to our private equity practice,” he said.