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3i, the listed private equity company, appointed Alan Giddins, 39, as a director within its European buyouts business. Based in London, Giddins will be responsible for investing across 3i’s key sectors, with a particular focus on support services and transport and logistics. Giddins started his career in 1987 at KPMG, before moving to SG Corporate & Investment Banking (formerly Hambros Bank, then SG Hambros) in 1992. In the process he has advised a number of quoted companies, including P&O on the demerger of its cruise division and UMECO on the acquisitions of Advanced Composites Group, ASED Group and Richmond Aircraft Products. Giddins has also advised private equity firms on the buy and sell sides, including the MBO of Asquith Court and the disposal of Kingfield Heath. The 3i European buyouts business manages more than €3.5bn invested in over 100 companies across Europe. It invests with a particular focus on media, healthcare and business support services.

• Xavier Clarke and Lili Hoff joined Duke Street Capital as analyst and legal adviser, respectively. Beatrice Vivier, Corinne Margerit and Oliver Mayer were also promoted at associate directors. Clarke, 26, joins the French deal team in Paris. He was previously at PwC in Paris, where he spent more than three years working in the audit division and in transaction services. Hoff, 30, joins the London team as a legal adviser. She was previously at Ashurst, where she specialised in M&A and private equity transactions. Vivier joined Duke Street in 2003 from BC Partners in Paris, where she spent two years working as an associate on large LBO transactions. Margerit joined in 2002 from Credit Suisse First Boston, where she worked as an associate in the investment banking department in London and New York. After completing an MBA at Harvard, Mayer joined the firm in 2002.
• Mark Lies, managing director and head of European leveraged finance at Lehman Brothers, is leaving the firm and plans to retire. The announced departure of Lies, formerly the global head of loans at Lehman, follows that of Steve Sterling, managing director and head of loan syndication and sales and trading, who left earlier this month for personal reasons. Both bankers are well known in the market. Lies relocated to London more than a year ago from New York, where he was global head of loans for Lehman Brothers, to head European leveraged finance. In March 2000, Lies had moved to Lehman from Bear Stearns to replace Chris Ryan. At Bear he had been co-head of the bank loans business. Lies went to Bear from Bank of America, where he was a senior loan executive. He left BofA along with colleagues following that firm’s 1998 merger with NationsBank.
• The US India Business Council announced the election of Charles Kaye as the chairman of the board of directors. Kaye is co-president of Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm with substantial investments in India.