People moves

Ashurst, a global law firm, has promoted partner Charlie Geffen to the position of senior partner. The promotion will take effect from the beginning of next year.

Geffen most recently advised a consortium comprising Apax Partners, TA Associates and Madison Dearborn Partners on the acquisition of a minority stake in Weather Investments for €1bn.

Paris-based advisory firm Bryan Garnier & Co has hired Jean-Yves Coste as senior adviser for its Paris-based healthcare practice.

Previously, Coste was based in London and was responsible for Cowen’s European Healthcare Investment Banking Group, a position in which he leveraged his client relationships to reinvigorate their European franchise.

Dubai International Capital has expanded its private equity division, taking on two executives who formerly worked at the private equity arms of investment banks Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Eric Kump joins from Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity to become managing director of DIC’s London office. He will spearhead the investment firm’s private equity team in Europe from DIC’s European headquarters in London.

Former Morgan Stanley Private Equity executive David Smoot joins DIC as managing director of private equity, based in Dubai.

Additionally, DIC has appointed Marc Holland as finance director of private equity in its London office and Alykhan Nathoo as chief executive of DIC Emerging Markets, based in Dubai.

Hollander was formerly at Investor AB, where he was a managing director in the private equity division.

Nathoo joins from Bain Capital in London where he has been for nine years, after helping set up Bain’s presence in Europe.

UK private equity firm Inflexion Private Equity has appointed Richard Swann as investment director. He joins from rival mid-market buyout firm LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds TSB.

Swann has been at LDC for three years, having joined from Deloitte Corporate Finance in 2005. While at LDC, he led or co-led investments in NAH, GVA and Commercial First.

This is the third appointment that Inflexion has made this year.

UK mid-market private equity firm Lyceum Capital has appointed Simon Hitchcock as a partner. He joins from competitor firm Sovereign Capital, where he has worked since 2002.

Hitchcock has 12 years’ private equity and corporate finance experience, initially working at Coopers & Lybrand Corporate Finance, where he joined the lead advisory team in 1996. At Sovereign, he sat on the firm’s investment committee and led four platform investments and 10 add-on acquisitions.

Phoenix Equity Partners, the UK mid-market private equity firm, has hired Clarissa Beresford as an investment manager.

Beresford joins Phoenix from the investment banking division at JPMorgan, where she advised on a number of corporate transactions across several sectors, including industrials, technology, healthcare and consumer.