Industry Frontline – November 2005

Joly joins Probitas
Global placement agent Probitas Partners has added Francois Joly to its team as a director. Joly, formerly a senior member of the investment team at Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, has 15 years’ experience of private equity investment, secondary and portfolio management in North America and Europe. While at la Caisse, Joly was responsible for the construction and management of the firm’s European and North American fund portfolios. A statement issued by Probitas said that Joly had executed ?two of the largest secondary portfolio sales for la Caisse, strongly positioning him as counsel and adviser to other institutions on the use of liquidity management?.

Daniel to head Praesidian LA office
Christopher Daniel has joined Praesidian Capital Investors, a provider of mezzanine capital to middle market companies, as managing director and head of the firm’s Los Angeles office. Daniel, who has 13 years’ experience of lending and investment in the middle market, was most recently an investor on behalf of an unidentified high net worth family office. Prior to that, he served as a partner at Wind jammer Capital, where he helped manage over $700 million of mezzanine and equity investments.

He has also held positions in the leveraged finance group of Citicorp Securities and the real estate consulting practice of Ernst & Young – Kenneth Leventhal & Company. Praesidian closed its debut fund on $156 million in February 2005 and has closed six investments since.

O’Melveny in Tokyo hiring spree
O’Melveny & Myers (OMM), the New York-based international law firm, has appointed four new partners to its Tokyo office. The partners have specialisations in various practice areas including private equity. Yoji Maeda and Yukihiro Terazawa have joined from Taiyo Law Office, while Naosuke Fujita has joined from Anderson Mori and Kosei Watanabe from Watanabe Kokusai Law Offices (WKLO). Watanabe, the founder and managing partner of WKLO, has had a joint venture with the OMM Tokyo office for the past few years. The two offices have now merged in a deal that sees six associates accompany Watanabe to OMM.

Cleary Gottlieb plans Beijing office
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, the US law firm, has applied to the Chinese Ministry of Justice to open a new office in Beijing, according to a report in The Lawyer magazine. The report said the office is likely to open early next year and will focus on practice areas including private equity and M&A. Recent months have seen a rush of foreign law firms into China following a second phase of reforms in August that relaxed restrictions on the legal market. There are now estimated to be almost 200 foreign law firms with licences to practice in China.

Morgan Lewis launches Japan JV
US law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius has announced a new joint venture with TMI Associates, the sixth-largest law firm in Japan. Morgan Lewis-TMI will have six partners dedicated to cross-border corporate transactions in Japan and the US and will focus on areas including M&A, private equity, corporate and finance law, technology, life sciences and pharma. The joint venture will be headed by co-managing partners Gregory Salathe and Kunio Namekata. TMI has an existing joint venture with Simmons & Simmons, the London-based international law firm, dating back to 2001.

Felsenstein quits Lovells for Clifford Chance
International law firm Clifford Chance has strengthened its private equity team in Frankfurt with the appointment of former Lovells partner Oliver Felsenstein. Felsenstein recently advised UK private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners on its €7 billion takeover of German residential home owner Viterra from E. ON. He has also advised the likes of Doughty Hanson, HgCapital and Quadriga. Felsentein is accompanied in the move from Lovells to Clifford Chance by associates Burc Hesse, Dr Volker Junghanns, Joachim Hasselbach and Portia Mercer. Clifford Chance, which has 350 lawyers in total in Germany, recently advised Bridgepoint Capital on the sale of its stake in Erftcarbon Beteiligungsgesellschaft and Kohlberg Kravis Robertson its purchase of ATU Auto-Teile Unger.

Richter joins Allied Irish debt team in Frankfurt
Ireland-based banking group Allied Irish Banks has bolstered its leveraged finance team in Germany with the appointment of Jens Richter as vice president in its Frankfurt office. Richter will be responsible for the generation and execution of new acquisition finance business in Germany. A statement issued by AIB said his appointment was part of an ongoing strategy to expand AIB’s leveraged corporate lending activities in the country. Richter joins from KBC in Frankfurt, where he was head of its German acquisition finance operations, and will report to AIB leveraged finance head Kai Gebauer in his new role.

Lehman Brothers hires Atterbury in London
Richard Atterbury has joined global investment bank Lehman Brothers as co-head of the global financial sponsors group and chairman of European leveraged finance. Atterbury, who will be based in London, will be responsible for enhancing coverage of financial sponsor clients and developing the European finance business. He will also be a member of the European investment banking executive committee. Atterbury was previously at Morgan Stanley, where he was cohead of the global financial sponsors group and chairman of the European leveraged and acquisition finance strategy committee. In his new role he will work closely with Ros Stephenson, cohead of global financial sponsors based in New York, and Charles Pitts-Tucker, head of European leveraged finance, according to a statement.

SJ Berwin recruits banking specialist
London-based international law firm SJ Berwin has announced that Brian Carne, currently a partner with Lovells, will be joining the firm’s structured finance practice on 1 January 2006. The practice focuses on all types of capital markets transactions, including securitisations and repackagings. Prior to working at Lovells, Brian trained with Allen & Overy and qualified in 1995. He is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford.

Changing of the guard at Green Manning
Green Manning & Bunch (GMB), the Denver-based middle market investment bank, has announced the appointment of Warren Henson and Scott Maierhofer as co-presidents in place of former co-presidents and founders Jack Green and Jim Bunch. A statement issued by GMB said Henson and Maierhofer will oversee the daily activities of the firm, while Green and Bunch will continue in active roles ?focusing on representing clients in transactions as well as business development. Henson has been with GMB since 1991, latterly as a principal, having previously been a vice president in the corporate finance department at Boettcher & Company, the Rocky Mountains-headquartered investment bank. Maierhofer joined GMB as a managing director in 2001, having previously served as presidentand managing principal of UniRock Management Corp, a Denver-based merchant bank he co-founded in 1988. Based in Denver and with an additional office in Phoenix, GMB provides M&A, private equity and debt capital raising, and strategic financial advisory services to middle market companies.

Rubin joins National Capital
National Capital Companies, the Maryland-based mid-market investment bank, has announced the appointment of Robert Rubin as managing director and senior adviser in its government contracting, software and IT services M&A advisory practice.

Rubin has more than 25 years’ M&A and corporate finance experience and has spent the last ten years focusing on M&A and corporate finance transactions for IT and professional service companies supplying services and products to federal, state and local governments. National Capital has been a provider of services including M&A advisory and private equity fundraising for the last 19 years.

PNC completes Harris Williams purchase
PNC Financial Services Group has completed its acquisition of Richmond, Virginia middle market investment bank Harris Williams & Co. In September, the ninth largest bank in the US and a publicly traded company, announced it would acquire Harris Williams, founded in 1991 by Hiter Harris and Chris Williams. Harris Williams currently employs 110 people in Richmond, Boston and San Francisco. It is known as a dominant intermediary in the private equity middle market. Prior to co-founding Harris Williams, Harris and Williams worked at Bowles Hollowell Conner, a previously dominant middle-middle market investment bank that is now part of Bank of America.

Two US law firms unite
Law firm Edwards & Angell has announced a merger with Palmer & Dodge, bolstering its Northeast presence in the wake of Testa Hurwitz’s implosion last winter. Combined, the new firm, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, will have a total of 520 attorneys, nine offices and more than 20 practice areas in the US. Edwards & Angell has made large strides in expanding its private equity practice recently. The firm opened its bankruptcy arm last year, attracting Buchanan Ingersoll lawyer Stuart Brown to launch its Wilmington, Delaware office. Also, following the Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault diaspora (which occurred when the Boston law firm disbanded earlier this year), Edwards & Angell was able to grab four former Testa Hurwitz lawyers, including Heather Stone, who has solidified its fund placement group, and Robert Tosti, who resides in the intellectual property practice.

CONSULTING FIRM
E&Y vet to chair new tech consultant
Roger Nelson, the former deputy chairman of Ernst & Young, has become the chairman of Water stone Management Group, which provides consulting and capital to ?emerging ventures, according to a press release. Nelson was the head of Ernst & Young Consulting throughout the 1990s, where he was an advisor to private equity firms, as well as to Tata Consulting Services, based in Mumbai, India. Nelson is also noted for being the executive to source the transaction that led to the $11 billion purchase of Ernst & Young Consulting Worldwide by Cap Gemini. In his new role Nelson will seek to establish relationships with private equity and venture capital firms, and will lead the establishment of ?dedicated funding vehicles for clients of the Water stone Management Group.?

Joining Nelson at Watersone are Eric Pelander and Michael Wujciak, who will become partners. Pelander was global leader for strategy and change services at IBM Business Consulting Services, while Wujciak was a vice president at Cap Gemini in charge of the management and IT consulting practice for the global automotive sector.

PUBLIC RELATIONS
Citigate wins Gresham account
London-based Citigate Dewe Rogerson has been appointed public relations adviser to Gresham, the UK mid-market private equity firm. Gresham, which raised a £235 million fund last year, focuses on deals worth between £5 million and £75 million and specialises in sectors including consumer, pharmaceuticals/healthcare, industrial products, business/support services and financial services. Last month, Gresham arranged a £31 million financing package for Jackson Lloyd, a provider of maintenance services to local authorities and housing associations in the North West of England. Citigate Dewe Rogerson advises a number of existing private equity clients including Warburg Pincus and Industri Kapital.

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