Triago-X Hires Two New Professionals –

Advising buyers and sellers in the secondary market is a big job that gets bigger every year. As new sellers decide to sell and new buyers go for deals, Paris and New York-based Triago-X decided it would have to increase its ranks to keep up with market demand.

The firm has hired two new professionals for its secondary practice. Triago-X added former Avesta and J.P. Morgan Chase executive Nicolas de Nazelle as a partner and former BHF Bank executive Kim Laidlaw as an analyst. Both new hires will work out of the firm’s Paris office.

Mathieu Drean, managing director of Triago-X, says he credits the increase in business with the growing maturity of the secondary market and an increased awareness among potential sellers that the secondary market can be an effective portfolio management tool. “Because of the evolution and the attitudes of people we’re working with, we expect there will be a lot to do on the secondary side for people like us in the months to come,” says Drean.

He adds that there is a dearth of advisors on the European side of the secondary market. “There is much more activity and few people like us providing this service,” he says. The firm will continue to expand throughout the year and may even add another senior management position. Drean says the firm’s staff, which currently has seven people, may have as many as 11 or 12 by the end of the year.

Triago-X is an affiliate of private equity advisory firm Triago, which was founded in 1992 to advise private equity funds in fund raising.