45 DEALMAKER
OF THE YEAR (OVER £25m) AWARD
SPONSORED BY BARCLAYS WINNER
Paul Russell, partner at BDO
Left: Dominic Holland with winner Paul Russell of BDO and Ian Workman of sponsor Barclays
Above: Dominic Holland congratulates Paul Russell
Three top names from the corporate finance community found themselves in the spotlight for Dealmaker of the Year (over £25m), sponsored by Barclays Corporate.
Ian Barton, head of corporate advisory at Deloitte’s Thames Valley office, Adrian Dray, who leads the regional CF team for KPMG, and Paul Russell, partner at BDO, already named joint Corporate Finance Adviser of the Year.
The audience heard that Barton had led the £100m debt refinancing of Azzurri Communications, described as a “tremendously complex deal”, involving seven banks, and came at a time when bank funding was hard to finalise.
During 2011, Dray’s KPMG team completed some 20 deals, including the £60m buyout of Davies Group, the £38m buyout of MeetingZone and the sale of Careology, in what was called a “challenging economic backdrop and deal environment”. One nomination referred to his win as Corporate Finance Adviser of the Year in 2007 and said: “In the past five years, he has continued to be a valued and consistent part of the deal community in the Thames Valley.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2012
“Throughout Adrian maintains a highly professional, discreet and pragmatic approach. He and his team have consistently demonstrated great tenacity in delivering deals where others may have failed.”
Russell, who leads BDO’s Southampton CF team with director Helen O’Kane, was lead adviser on the sale of VADition to Exclusive Networks, the sale of RiskDisk to Experian, and the sale of ICM to Compass, as well as the MBO of Fibercore and the refinancing of GCi.
One nomination praised his “impressive performance”, while another said: “We were delighted to work with BDO. Paul and Helen showed great commitment to getting the deal done and steered us through the complexities of selling our business in a thorough and professional manner. They really understood our business and the key issues in the deal. We were glad to have them on our side of the negotiating table.”
As the results of the audience vote rolled in, Russell was announced as a winner for the second time on the night and came to the stage to be
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presented with his award by Ian Workman, head of Solent and Dorset corporate at Barclays.
Paying tribute to the hard work of his team and reflecting on his double triumph, Russell said: “It was an honour to win two individual awards at the Deal Awards, but it is a reflection on a very strong team performance.
“I have the good fortune to lead the BDO team but it is a highperforming collective of very talented and experienced individuals that has enabled us to complete a series of significant transactions throughout 2011 and resulted in the individual recognition.
“Completing transactions in this market needs tenacity, experience and lots of work and the team has these qualities in abundance. The local BDO experience was replicated nationally with BDO being placed first in the Experian-Corp Fin rankings for 2011.”
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