Industry Frontline – September 2005

Marsh Europe names new head of private equity
Marsh, the global risk and insurance services firm, has named Edwin Charnaud as its new European practice leader for private equity and M&A. Charnaud, who will be based in Marsh’s European headquarters in London, will report to Chris Lay, the company’s European client practice leader. In a statement, Lay said: ?Edwin has amassed a wealth of experience during his 19-year career in the insurance industry, where he has played a critical role in the development of risk and insurance services for the private equity and M&A communities. Charnaud will oversee a team of 72 professionals across Europe and the Middle East. Marsh is a unit of Marsh & McLennan Companies, which also own Guy Carpenter, Kroll, Putnam Investments and Mercer.

Jones Day adds lawyers in Pari
Ashurst’s loss is Jones Day’s gain. The latter law firm has hired tax specialist Christopher Potter away from the Paris office of Ashurst. Potter is an expert in the tax aspects of investment funds with regard to both English and French law. In related news, Jones Day, based in the US, has hired Françoise Labrousse away from Shearman & Sterling as European counsel in charge of environmental law. Founded in 1893, Jones Day now has more than 2,200 lawyers in 30 offices around the world. Ashurst has roughly 150 partners in 10 countries.

Dechert London nabs deal lawyer
International law firm Dechert has hired Adam Levin as a partner in its London office. Levin joins Dechert from Baker & McKenzie’s London office. At Baker & McKenzie, Levin worked on Platinum Equity’s £103 million acquisition of Hays PLC’s Logistics Services Division, among other deals. Levin was previously a partner at Church & Grace in Sydney, Australia. The hiring is part of a general build-out for Dechert in its transactional business. The firm recently hired Douglas Getter away from Dewey Ballantine to focus on deals, and last year hired Ashurst partner Mark Davis. ?Adam is a talented practitioner whose private equity expertise and international experience will represent significant assets for the continued expansion of one of our key practice areas, said James Croock, co-head of Dechert’s International M&A practice, in a statement. The firm has 750 lawyers located in 17 cities worldwide.

Brown Rudnick poaches three in London
Brown Rudnick has bolstered its private equity practice through the appointment of Kieran O’Connor, Matthew Sillett and Adrian Yeandle to the firm’s corporate group. Kieran O’Connor and Matthew Sillett both join Brown Rudnick as Partners from Speechly Bircham where they led that firm’s private equity group. Adrian Yeandle joins them as a Senior Associate from Osborne Clarke’s London office. O’Connor, Sillett and Yeandle worked together at Osborne Clarke in the late 1990s. Based in the US, the firm opened its London office in 1997 and a Dublin office in 2002. In an announcement, Scott Burns, the senior partner of Brown Rudnick in London, said: ?Brown Rudnick has seen very strong growth over the past 18 months in our business working with many of the leading private equity funds in the UK and Europe. These new appointments are a natural result of this growth.?

Jeffries president retires
Investment bank Jeffries Group announced that John Shaw will retire as president, chief operating officer and member of the board. Current chairman and chief executive officer, Richard Handler, will replace Shaw as president. Shaw, 58, had been with Jefferies for 22 years, serving as regional manager of the firm’s equity division in both Chicago and Boston, and then as co-president and co-COO until 2001. Jeffries’ Brian Friedman will replace Shaw on the board. Friedman is president of Jeffries Capital Partners, the private equity affiliate of the company formerly known as ING Furman Selz Investments. In May, Jefferies acquired Helix Associates, a private equity fund placement firm. Jeffries is based in New York.

Galen hires in California
Washington, DC healthcare merchant bank Galen Capital Group announced that Steve Aust has joined the firm as a managing director based out of the firm’s Newport Beach, California office. Aust has extensive experience raising direct capital for Internet companies, including Home Shopping Network.com, Visionquest.com, and 2 ExtremeSports. com. According to a press release, Aust also worked with famed real estate developer Donald Trump to create the restaurant on 40 Wall Street in New York. He has also owned a company that marketed health and skincare products.

Investec hires RBS pro in London
Investec Private Bank has hired Adam Querido for its London-based growth finance division. Querido joins Investec from the Royal Bank of Scotland where he was responsible for deal sourcing, execution and structuring of debt solutions for middle-market buyouts. Querido, a South African national, is a chartered accountant. Investec Private Bank is part of the Investec Group and operates out of London, the Channel Islands, Switzerland and Ireland, as well as South Africa and Australia.

Deloitte merges with UK’s Burlington
Consulting firm Deloitte has announced a merger with Burlington, a London-based strategy consulting firm catering to the private equity industry. In a statement, John Connolly, UK chief executive and senior partner at Deloitte, said: ?With three partners and a team of circa 30 joining Deloitte’s corporate finance practice, the Burlington deal secures Deloitte’s position as the leading provider of quality due diligence services. Burlington’s industry expertise will be a fantastic boost to an already strong team. Allan Gasson, managing director of Burlington, said: ?The combination of financial and commercial due diligence is becoming a critical area for competitive differentiation in the private equity market. Moreover, this deal will deeply enhance our ability to service our clients’ needs by delivering the huge wealth of sector expertise at Deloitte and providing the broadest service of all the ?Big Four?: corporate finance, tax, audit and consultancy.?

Morgan Joseph hires from Street.com
New York middle-market investment bank Morgan Joseph has announced a major expansion of its business with the hiring of sales traders and research analysts from the disbanded subsidiary of media company The Street.com. The hires come from a subsidiary called Independent Research Group. Michael Weitzner has been named managing director and director of equity sales and sales trading at Morgan Joseph. Prior to joining The Street.com, Weitzner was managing director and head of international trading at ABN AMRO/ING Barings.

Atlantic-Pacific hires Bain associate
Atlantic-Pacific Capital, a placement agency based in Greenwich, Connecticut, has hired Joshua Vogelhut as an associate in charge of direct placements and third-party fund raisings, the firm has announced. Vogelhut joins the firm from consultant Bain& Company, where he worked with private equity and corporate clients. Atlantic-Pacific is led by CEO James Manley, who founded the firm in 1995. Before that, Manley was a co-founder and managing director of Everest Capital Limited. In addition to president Joseph Herman, the firm has six principals. It has additional offices in New Jersey, Chicago, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong.

LAW FIRMS
Chadbourne hires Simpson Thacher lawyer
International law firm of Chadbourne & Parke announced that Laura Friedrich has been named a partner in the private equity group. Friedrich will based in the firm’s New York office. Friedrich joins Chadbourne from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where she had been a member of the private funds group since 1996. Friedrich is an expert on fund formation. Talbert Navia, head of Chadbourne’s private equity group, said in a statement:?As private equity funds increasingly influence the financial marketplace,[Friedrich’s] extensive experience adds another dimension to our ability to serve our clients’ diverse and complex investment needs. Last year, Chadbourne reorganized its private equity group by bringing together private equity lawyers from seven of the firm’s US and foreign offices. Friedrich received her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley. In the statement, Freidrich said:?I am impressed by Chadbourne’s experienced and entrepreneurial Private Equity Group, which includes partners who have held senior positions as principals at private equity funds and understand the business and legal needs of general partners and their investment funds.?

RESTRUCTURING AND TURNAROUNDS
Alvarez & Marsal recruits European duo amid global expansion
The US-based restructuring and turnaround adviser has bolstered its London and Frankfurt teams with the appointment of two new managing directors. Altaf Kara has joined the London team from Accenture, the outsourcing, consulting and technology firm, where he was a consulting partner focusing on retail, consumer products and media. His clients included Tesco, BP Retail and News Corp. Meanwhile, Peter Mrosik has joined the Frankfurt office, having previously been chairman of Eurobike/Fairchild Sports, one of the world’s largest makers and retailers of branded motorcycle apparel and accessories, including brands such as Harley Davidson and Hein Gericke. Prior to that, Mrosik had been managing director of Douglas Corporate Services, a perfume, cosmetics and textiles conglomerate and a director of finance/audit and controlling at DyStar Textilfarben, a €1.1 billion joint venture between Bayer and Hoechst. ?We are seeing increasing demand for A&M’s execution-oriented approach for corporate restructurings across Europe, most notably in Germany, said A&M founder and head of A&M Europe Antonio Alvarez III, in a statement. In July, Alvarez & Marsal launched Alvarez & Marsal Asia with an 80-strong team recruited en masse from Hong Kong-and Singapore-based RSM Nelson Wheeler Corporate Advisory Services. The ex-RSM team is headed by managing directors Cos Borrelli, Kelvin Flynn and Neill Poole. Established for more than ten years, the team has carried out advisory mandates in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand. These included a $550 million debt workout at Philippines industrial group Benpres and the turnaround and interim management of Forefront, the distributor for Swedish vehicle manufacturer Scania in Greater China.

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