Frontline – May 2006

Compliance firm adds director
IMS Consulting, the UK asset management compliance consultant specializing in alternative investments, has appointed Stephen Burke as director of consulting. Burke has joined after 15 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was head of the firm’s investment management regulatory compliance unit. He will become a member of the IMS board when his move completes in May, where he will join CEO Scott Wilson, chairman Peter Smith and director Martin Kelly. IMS has offices in London and New York from where it advises and manages the compliance affairs of over 200 firms in the traditional asset management, private equity, hedge fund, property fund and capital market sectors.

Watson Wyatt opens in Frankfurt
Watson Wyatt, the NYSE-listed global consulting firm, has opened a new office in Frankfurt following the recent enlargement of its investment consulting team in Germany. The firm already has German offices in Munich and Duesseldorf, and employs around 65 associates in the country. The new office will be headed by Torsten Koepke, who recently joined from Feri Institutional Management to lead the firm’s German investment consulting business. Said Koepke: ?The investment marketplace is evolving rapidly in Germany and becoming increasingly open to new investment ideas. Indeed, modern and impartial investment consulting is becoming more sought after by large investors as the market opens up to global, competitive investment thinking and practice.? Watson Wyatt Investment Consulting provides investment advice to some of the world’s largest pension funds and institutional investors.

LeRoy joins Crane Capital as MD
Placement agent Crane Capital Associates has announced the appointment of Michelle LeRoy as a managing director. Based in New York, LeRoy will lead Crane’s origination, due diligence and fundraising efforts for real estate funds and institutional investors. LeRoy was previously head of investor relations for SL Green Realty Corp and Gramercy Capital Corp, two of the top performing REITs in 2004 and 2005. Crane Capital, a placement specialist for private equity funds and alternative asset managers, has offices in Toronto, New York, London, Munich and Melbourne.

Waddell steps up at Northern Trust
Northern Trust, the Chicago-based global asset management and fund administration business, has appointed Rick Waddell as its new president and chief operating officer. He will retain his current responsibilities as president of corporate and institutional services, which he has held since early 2003. Separately, Northern Trust has launched a new office in Amsterdam. The office is headed by managing director Paul Cutts, who has relocated from the firm’s London office, where he managed a relationship management team for Dutch clients.

Harris Nesbitt hires packaging specialist
Harris Nesbitt, the US investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group of Toronto, has hired Douglas Lawson as a managing director in its commercial and industrial group. Based in Chicago, Lawson will head the firm’s packaging investment banking practice. He joins from Piper Jaffray & Company’s Chicago-based middle market mergers and acquisitions group, where he established and headed the packaging practice. Lawson’s 20-year career includes sale mandates, buyside advisory services, leveraged buyouts, fairness opinions and financings for private equity groups, public companies and privately owned businesses.

Giuliani Capital appoints new MD
Giuliani Capital Advisors, a New York-based provider of investment banking solutions in complex or distressed situations, has appointed Geoffrey Richards as a managing director focusing on restructuring. Richards has been a partner in the restructuring department of international law firm Kirkland & Ellis since 2002. In his previous role, Richards advised private equity firms as well as corporate clients such as United Airlines and AmeriServe. Giuliani Capital Advisors provides lead advisory services to public and private companies, lenders and other parties that are executing financial and strategic transactions. It is an affiliate of Giuliani Partners, the consulting and investment firm founded in January 2002 by Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City.

Chicago debt provider boosts team
Frances Miller has joined MFC Capital Funding, the Chicago-based lower mid-market debt lender, as an operations analyst. Miller was previously an account administrator in the Asset Based Lending Group at Harris Nesbitt and before that spent nine years with Fleet Credit Corporation as a senior loan technician. She also had spells at Mellon Bank and Financial Managers Society. Founded in February 2005, MFC provides cash flow, structured finance and asset-based senior secured loans worth between $3 million and $25 million to companies with typically less than $100 million in revenue. Primarily a senior leveraged lender, MFC also provides complementary subordinated debt as well as select equity co-investments and LBO fund investments.

CIT recruits senior quartet
CIT Global Sponsor Finance, the commercial finance company, has appointed four managing directors to help it pursue middle market buyout financings with private equity groups across the US. Mark Affolter, Thomas Hobbis, Eric Toizer and Peter White have been recruited to the firm, which provides financing solutions and advisory services to its middle market client base. Toizer joins from French bank BNP Paribas to head up CIT’s newly established team in San Francisco; while White, who has moved from GE Global Sponsor Finance, is charged with building a team in Boston to serve private equity firms in New England. Affolter and Hobbis join CIT’s established offices in Chicago and New York respectively. Affolter, who was previously senior managing director of GE Global Sponsor Finance, is charged with building the firm’s presence in the Midwest sponsor community; while Hobbis, who was formerly at ING Capital’s acquisition finance group, will focus on private equity firms in New York, Pennsylvania and the Southeast.

London, NYC hires for Probitas
Probitas Partners, the San Francisco-based placement agent and alternative investment advisory firm, has promoted Ritesh Doshi to vice president in its London office and expanded its New York team with the appointment of Stephen Salyer. Doshi has been an associate at the firm since 2002 and has placed funds, sold secondary portfolios and sourced new relationships with GPs in Europe and the Middle East. Prior to joining Probitas, he was an analyst in the Private Fund Group of Credit Suisse. Salyer joins as an associate in New York alongside Reidan Cruz, Jean-Marc Cuvilly and Dale Meyer. Having joined from Washington DC-based placement agent Potomac Investment Services, he will be responsible for sourcing and building relationships with investors in eastern North America.

Reshuffle at Brown Gibbons
Brown Gibbons Lang & Company, the middle market investment bank, has announced four promotions and two other staff changes in its offices in Chicago and Cleveland. In Chicago, John Tilson has moved up from director to managing director; Michael Shaffer from senior associate to vice president; and Sean Sullivan from associate to vice president. In Cleveland, Effram Kaplan has moved from associate to senior associate. Meanwhile, Julie Crothers has joined the firm as a communications director in Chicago, having previously held positions in communications and public relations at Morningstar Inc and JPMorgan Global Asset Management. Wendy Neal, who was vice president of marketing for Brown Gibbons, has moved to become director of marketing at Global M&A, a partnership of middle market investment banks in 28 countries of which Brown Gibbons is a member.

Goldsmith launches lower mid-market M&A team
Minneapolis-based investment bank Goldsmith Agio Helms has launched a new Lower Mid-Market Group (LMG), dedicated to providing merger and acquisition advisory services to sellers of businesses at the lower end of the middle market. The launch follows Goldsmith’s recent entry into the market segment with the purchase of Benakis & Company, also based in Minneapolis. Founded in 1982, Benakis represented sellers of businesses worth between $10 million and $40 million. Clients included private equity groups as well as corporations and entrepreneurs. Gary O’Brien, who owned Benakis, will now become the head of Goldsmith’s LMG group. Said Jack Helms, managing director and CEO of Goldsmith: ?Over the last 15 years, our core practice has evolved with our clients who have moved into the mid and upper end of the middle market. Yet there are a great many businesses in the lower middle market and an emerging group of participants who focus on this market that need specialized investment banking services.?

Mullen to spearhead Bank of Ireland London effort
Bank of Ireland Acquisition Finance has recruited Peter Mullen from Societe Generale to head up a new London-based syndications team. Mullen spent eight years in the debt syndications team at SocGen in London and New York, where he was latterly director of loan syndications. He was formerly at Chase Manhattan in London. Tom Hayes, CEO of Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking, said Mullen’s appointment ?represents a significant stage in the strategic development of our acquisition finance business and confirms our long-term commitment to this market.? He added that the new team would further enhance the bank’s origination and distribution capability across Europe, following the recent establishment of offices in Paris and Frankfurt. Bank of IrelandAcquisition Finance was launched in 1996 to arrange, underwrite and participate in acquisition and leveraged finance transactions in Ireland, the UK, Continental Europe and the US.