People March issue 2006

Weil Gotshal poaches

Lovells’ global head of private equity Marco Compagnoni has left the firm for Weil, Gotshal & Manges, along with lawyer Jonathan Wood. The two departures make it four exits from Lovells in three months, having lost Oliver Felsenstein and Derek Baird to Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy, respectively.

Compagnoni has been a partner at Lovells since 1993 and Woods has been at the firm for almost 10 years and has specialised in international private equity for most of that time. The two join Weil Gotshal’s global private equity practice, and Wood is promoted to partner.

Interim head of Lovells private equity is Leah Dunlop, who helped set up the firm’s private equity practice in the 1980s. She is based in Italy.

Abingworth appts

Abingworth Management has appointed Andy Sandham as a venture partner. In this role he will identify and create new businesses and provide strategic and operational support for existing companies within the Abingworth portfolio. Sandham will be based at the company’s headquarters in London.

Sandham has over 28 years’ experience in the healthcare sector, during which time he has performed a broad spectrum of roles covering corporate strategy, operational management, business development and marketing. He has contributed significantly to the establishment of successful drug discovery and development companies both in Europe and the US. Before joining Abingworth he was CEO and co-founder of Ionix Pharmaceuticals, which was divested to Vernalis plc in 2005. Prior to this he served as COO of Signature BioScience, Hexagen and Cantab Pharmaceuticals. He has also held various business development and marketing positions at Amersham, Celltech and Roche. He is currently non-executive chairman of NeurAxon and Novacta Biosystems.

E&Y expands

Ernst & Young has made three recruitments in its UK-based M&A practice, including Ken Williamson as a partner. Alongside Williamson, Mark Brockway has joined as a director and Andy Simmons as an associate director and all three will specialise in advising mid-market companies on acquisitions, disposals and private equity deals.

Williamson was at Ernst & Young’s Northern M&A team, where he worked on the Caradon Plumbing, Duralay, Isle of Man Steam Packet, Davenham deals for private equity firms, such as Montagu Private Equity and LDC.

Brockway joined from Corven, a strategy consulting firm, where he was head of corporate finance for 10 years.

Simmons has spent the last five years working in Ernst & Young’s Scottish M&A team, advising on a variety of private equity and debt backed transactions. These include working with Dunedin Capital Partners in its sale of Thomson Brothers to Wolseley and working with Bank of Scotland Corporate in its backing of Elphinstone Land’s acquisition and take-private of UA Group.

Deloitte hires

Deloitte has poached Chris Hyams, an international M&A specialist, from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ transaction services practice in Paris. He joins Deloitte as a partner in its private equity transaction services team in London.

Hyams said: “Having spent the last eight years in New York and Paris, I have seen the private equity market become increasingly international. The private equity transaction services team at Deloitte has grown incredibly over the past few years and has earned client respect in the UK and abroad through its commitment to this growing industry. I am looking forward to being part of the team’s expansion.”

Quartilium recruits

Finama Private Equity – Quartilium, the private equity fund-of-funds arm of Groupama in France, has appointed Olivier Thévenet as investment manager. Thévenet, 33, started his career at McKinsey & Co as a management consultant. He then joined the French office of Advent International and worked at the Boston Consulting Group as a senior consultant.

Quartilium is the fund-of-funds team of Finama Private Equity, a management company affiliated to Groupama, the first French insurance mutual group with €73bn of assets under management.

Impax adds

Jonathan Fogg has been made an investment manager at Impax Asset Management, where he will work on The Recycling Fund, the first venture capital fund dedicated to the UK recycling sector. Established in 2003 by WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme), Wastelink, Barclays and Partnerships UK, The Recycling Fund provides access to long-term finance for small or medium recycling companies in the UK.

Fogg comes to Impax with nine years’ experience in the venture capital and private equity sector. Most recently he was equity fund manager with Finance Wales Investments Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) that provides funding for Welsh-based small and medium-sized enterprises. His achievements include the establishment of an investment team of 10 from a standing start, developing a syndicate partners’ programme and raising a further £10m fund.

Prior to that, he was investment manager with Corus subsidiary UK Steel Enterprises Ltd, where he completed 60 investments in a five-year period and managed a portfolio of 34 companies. Originally trained as an accountant, he has also worked for the Audit Commission, BDO Binder Hamlyn and Ernst & Young.

Candover recruits

Candover has appointed Bertrand Finet as a partner in its Paris office. Finet, 40, has over 15 years’ experience working in private equity, most recently at CVC Capital Partners in Paris. He has worked on a number of mid-to-large cap deals across a range of sectors, including building materials, electrical materials and specialised distribution. At CVC, Bertrand led the €890m buyout of Materis, the French building materials business that was subsequently sold for €1.1bn, and the acquisition of Provimi, a leading animal feed company.

He began his career in 1990 at 3i in London before joining 3i France in 1992 where he was responsible for the origination and execution of a number of mid-sized French transactions. In 1995 he joined CVC, becoming managing director in 2003.

Oostvogels opens in London

Luxembourg-based financial and business law firm, Oostvogels Pfister Roemers has opened an office in Dominion Street in London, making it the first Luxembourg-based legal house to open a UK office.

Stef Oostvogels, partner at Oostvogels, says: “We have rapidly grown in Luxembourg over the last seven years and we recognised that our clients required our support in London also, which only confirmed our own views that it was the right time to set up here. Our clients include the most high profile in the industry, and where they operate is where we operate.”

Oostvogels’ new office will serve UK-based clients exclusively in Luxembourg law.

Interregnum hires

Interregnum has appointed John Leggate, CIO, group vice-president, digital & communications technology and group vice-president procurement & supply chain management at BP, as a non-executive director. His appointment is part of a major restructuring of the board, which began in January when Niall Doran was named as the new chief executive and Colin Goodall, chairman of Dana Petroleum plc, and former Energy Minister Brian Wilson, were appointed as non-executive directors. Interregnum subsequently announced plans for an acquisition and fund raising.

Leggate joined BP in 1979 as a chartered engineer. He managed the combined Southern North Sea (SNS) Gas Asset in the UK before becoming president of AIOC (Azerbaijan International Operating Company). In January 1999, he took on the role of group vice-president, IT, before moving to his current position in 2005. He is also a member of the BP Group senior leadership team.

The directorships held by John Leggate, 58, over the five years preceding the date of appointment are TradeRanger and Zembu.

Aon promotes

Aon Limited, the UK insurance broker and risk management consultancy, has made a number of promotions within its M&A group. Tim Davies, Jon Higgins and Jim Rutherford have been appointed as directors, and Giles Murphy has been promoted to associate director.

Davies will work with existing directors Rebecca Ford and Peter Casciani to lead Aon’s M&A project management team in the UK.

His responsibilities include overseeing projects on behalf of the firm’s private equity clients.

Higgins will direct the group’s European portfolio management team, with responsibility for project managing the risk financing of the investee companies owned by the group’s private equity clients.

Rutherford’s role includes specific responsibilities for Scotland and Northern England in client development and project management, while Murphy’s position as associate director will involve project management responsibilities for the group’s due diligence offering in the UK.

Dawson to Impetus

Merrill Lynch’s former head of European investment banking has been appointed to the board of Impetus Trust, the UK venture philanthropy pioneer. Guy Dawson, a founding partner of Tricorn Partners, an independent corporate finance advisory business, is also former co-head of investment banking at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, and is currently non-executive director of The BOC Group plc and Boots plc.

He is joined on the Impetus Board by Adrian Beecroft, chief investment officer at Apax Partners and former chairman of the British Venture Capital Association, and Shaks Ghosh, the chief executive of homelessness charity, Crisis.

Permira reshuffle

Permira has promoted three and will see two more resign as it reshuffles ahead of its reported €10bn fund raising.

Promoted to partner are Jörg Rockenhäuser, Richard Sanders and Federico Saruggia, all of who take up their roles with immediate effect, and leaving are partners Evelyn Ehlert and Graham Wrigley, who depart some time in 2006.

Rockenhäuser joined Permira in 2001, and was previously a principal at AT Kearney. He is moving to London from the Frankfurt office, where he was part of the TMT team.

Sanders is based in London, and joined Permira from Morgan Stanley. Saruggia leaves the Milan office and will now be found in London.

Paul Capital appts

Paul Capital Partners has appointed Jamie Johnson to its investment team as a managing director in the firm’s San Francisco office. He will focus on identifying and making commitments to top-performing private equity funds, contributing actively to all aspects of manager selection, due diligence and structuring of investments.

He will also play a major role assisting Paul Capital in the exploration of additional fund-of-funds product offerings. These will include investments in US and European middle market buyout funds as well as other opportunities as they arise.

Johnson was most recently head of private equity at Alta Advisers, a London-based family office, where he built a substantial global fund investment programme. He had previously advised another wealthy individual on fund and direct investments, was a GP at Gartmore Private Capital, served as European managing director of research group Venture Economics, owned by Thomson Financial, and led the financial services team at a venture-backed systems consultancy. He began his career with the First National Bank of Chicago and held positions in Chicago, Milan and London.

Mourant in Guernsey

Mourant du Feu & Jeune has opened an office in Guernsey, led by Darren Bacon, who joined the firm from Cary Olsen. Initially the new office will specialise exclusively in international financial business. In particular, it will focus on establishing and advising on private equity, property and hedge funds, complementing Mourant’s existing Guernsey fund administration business.

Bacon, who before Carey Olsen, worked in the securities and investments group of Lovells in London and as an in-house lawyer at an investment bank, is joined by Guernsey advocate Kathryn Christie, formerly of Collas Day.

CVC appts

CVC has hired Alexander Fotakidis as investment director in the international team based in London. He joins from CIBC World Markets, where he spent five years working as part of the European leveraged finance group. At CIBC, he was involved in arranging debt financing on more than 10 leveraged buyouts and recapitalisations including three CVC transactions (AVR, Flint/Xsys, BDS/ANI).

TowerBrook adds

Andrew Rolfe, former president of Gap Inc’s international division, has joined TowerBrook Capital Partners as an advisory board member and senior venture partner. Rolfe will work on investment opportunities in both the US and Europe with a focus on acquisitions in the retail, food service and hospitality sectors.

At Gap, where he was also a member of the company’s executive leadership team, Rolfe was responsible for developing and executing Gap’s international growth strategy, including new market identification, and international brand extensions. In addition, he oversaw the company’s international operations, including more than 450 store locations in the UK, France and Japan. Most recently he was responsible for the successful launch of Banana Republic in Japan and the development of a new franchise business in Singapore and Malaysia.

Before joining Gap in January 2004, he served as chairman and CEO of Pret A Manger, the UK food retailer. Prior to this he was chief executive of Booker Foodservice and a director of Booker plc. He also served as vice-president operations for PepsiCo Restaurants Europe, which included both KFC and Pizza Hut brands.

AXA hires

Marton Hunek has joined AXA Private Equity from AGF Private Equity. He has become a senior investment manager in the LBO co-investment team. He started his career in 1996 as project manager at GKI Economic Research Co, a leading Hungarian think-tank, where he also co-founded GKIeNET Internet Research and Consulting Ltd. Following this he was an analyst at Roland Berger & Partners (Hungary). From 2000 to 2005 he was principal at AGF.

Kennet recruits

Kennet Venture Partners has appointed Eileen Tanghal as director. She will be based in the company’s London office. She has spent the last three years with Amadeus Capital Partners, where she was an associate, focusing on hardware components and semiconductors. Prior to this, Tanghal held operational roles at PDF Solutions, a US venture-backed semiconductor IP and software company, and AllAdvantage.com, an online services business.

TowerBrook appts

TowerBrook Capital Partners has hired Winston Ginsberg as a managing director in the London office, where he will be involved in deal sourcing and execution across the range of TowerBrook’s sectors. Between 2000 and 2005 Ginsberg was a general partner and co-founder of Elwin Capital Partners. During that time he was also a founder of OfficeTiger, one of the world’s largest business process outsourcing companies. Previously, he was a member of the principal investment area and the M&A department of Goldman Sachs in London and New York from 1996 to 2000. Prior to Goldman Sachs, he was a member of the M&A department of Lazard Frere & Co in New York.

PwC promotes

PricewaterhouseCoopers has named Stuart Warriner the Northern head of corporate finance. He is currently a partner responsible for private equity in the region, and will now be taking on an additional and newly established role to co-ordinate and grow all corporate finance business for the firm in the local markets across the North of England.

New Advent office

Advent International has officially opened its Amsterdam office. Teartse Schaper, who will be supported from London by managing director John Singer, will lead the office. This opening brings the total number of Advent’s offices to 14, nine of which are based across Europe. Singer said: “We’re very excited to be opening an office in the Netherlands. We have been working and investing in the Netherlands for more than a decade, and still find that Dutch companies are amongst the most entrepreneurial in Europe and increasingly international in outlook.”

Schaper said: “While there is no shortage of international private equity funding in the Netherlands, there is not as much of a local presence as one might expect. Although Advent has been active and successful in the market for many years, there is no doubt that a physical presence will enable us to do our job better.”

Intermediate adds

Intermediate Capital has appointed Justin Dowley as both a new non-executive director of the company and independent chairman of the audit committee. Dowley is a partner of Tricorn Partners, the independent corporate advisory firm, which he co-founded in 2003. Previous positions he has held include head of investment banking and head of M&A for Europe at Merrill Lynch & Co and head of UK corporate finance at Morgan Grenfell & Co. His career began at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he qualified as a chartered accountant. He is currently a non-executive director of Bridgewell Group Ltd and Wyevale Garden Centres plc.