News in brief

• Houlihan Lokey last week announced the acquisition of European independent leveraged debt advisory firm Blenheim Advisors, in what Houlihan said was a further step in the growth of the firm’s European investment banking advisory platform. Blenheim’s founders, ex-CIBC leveraged bankers William Allen and Jonathan Guise, are joining the firm as managing directors and will be joint heads of European debt advisory.

David Preiser, senior managing director and chairman of Houlihan Lokey Europe, said: “Over the past decade, we have seen a significant increase in the number of European companies and private equity sponsors looking to access the debt capital markets, particularly among the mid-cap to upper mid-cap players . . . We believe this acquisition will provide our private equity clients with increased access to our M&A advisory, debt advisory and financing solutions.”

• Gene Moldavsky has been appointed managing director and head of corporate finance at Alfa Bank. In his new role he will oversee the origination and execution of M&A and advisory services, equity and debt capital markets businesses. Moldavsky will also aim to expand Alfa Bank’s presence in the Russian markets. Prior to joining Alfa Bank, Moldavsky was executive director at UBS.

• Maria Roca has joined Natixis’ loan syndication as head of origination for Spain and Portugal. Based in London, Roca is responsible for originating syndicated loan transactions in Spain and Portugal, working with the Natixis offices in Madrid and Lisbon.

• BayernLB last week appointed Conrad Clarke as head of acquisition and leveraged finance. He joins from Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Ltd, where he was managing director, risk management and formerly head of leveraged finance. Clarke’s objective is to raise the profile of BayernLB in the field of European leveraged finance, a market to which the bank last week said that it was fully committed. Clarke reports to Stefan Georg, global head of structured finance at BayernLB.

• Bryan Garnier, the independent investment bank focused on European growth companies, has recruited Catherine Trividic to its corporate finance division as a director of the healthcare team. Trividic will be collaborating with Francois Thomas, who is a senior adviser to the team.

Based in Paris, Trividic will be in charge of developing the corporate finance healthcare franchise and will advise corporate clients and private equity investors on a variety of deals, including equity capital markets transactions, M&A and private placements. Before joining Bryan Garnier, Trividic led the pharma and healthcare sector at Calyon.

• ING has appointed Eva Smolen to its leveraged capital markets syndicated finance team. Smolen previously worked within leveraged finance on the CEE origination side of the business at ING. She will report to Paul McKenna, European head of leveraged syndicated finance, and to Oliver Blount, head of capital markets CEE and Middle East.