Global promotions

Advent International has announced the promotion of 13 members of its global investment team. Three professionals were elevated to partner level in Europe and the US.

They are Tim Franks, with the Western European team in London; Istvan Szoke, with the Central and Eastern European team in London; and Steven Collins, a member of the North American deal team in Boston.

Franks joined Advent in 1999 from the investment banking division of Credit Suisse First Boston and previously worked for Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. He focuses on investments in the retail, media and leisure sectors. He has been involved in six Advent investments, including Fat Face, Sportfive, Radio 538, ILVA, Poundland and Vinnolit. Recently Franks has drawn on his banking experience to co-ordinate the internal debt advisory group at Advent.

Szoke joined Advent in 1999 from Eastern Heritage Capital, a firm he founded in Geneva, where he co-managed an emerging market equity fund. Before that, he was an equity analyst at Vontobel Asset Management in Zurich and worked in the corporate finance and equity groups of Bankers Trust in Budapest, London and New York. Szoke co-led Advent’s investment in Oskar Mobil and the buyout of CCS, and led the leveraged management buy-in of Bolix.

Advent also promoted three individuals to principal – Fernando Díaz-Solís in Madrid, Jeff Paduch in London and Wojtek Napiórkowski in Warsaw – and seven to senior associate.

Commenting on the promotions, Steven Tadler, a managing director of Advent International and chairman of its Executive Committee, says: “These individuals have helped deliver another outstanding year for Advent, in which we realised significant proceeds from over 20 exits and invested US$1.2bn in 13 companies in nine countries. I am confident that in their new roles they will continue to drive excellence across the business in 2007.”