38 DEALMAKER


OF THE YEAR AWARD


SPONSORED BY PITMANS LLP WINNER Yann Souillard


Above: Yann Souillard of LDC


Right: Yann Souillard received his award from Christopher Avery (right) of sponsor Pitmans


Everyone had enjoyed their dessert – when Martin Stanford drew attention back to the Deals Awards presentations, and the title of Dealmaker of the Year.


This one went to a vote – as did all the final three awards of the evening.


The winners were all decided by the plethora of skill, knowledge and experience displayed and deployed by the dealmaking practitioners attending. Individual votes were recorded by keypad terminals on each table.


Nominations for this prestigious award were:


Ian Barton of HMT was already a winner on the night. Barton is a lead advisory partner at HMT with some 20 years experience. On arriving from Deloitte, Barton has brought high-end dealmaking to HMT, leading on two £100 million-plus deals in 2013 and proving the value of his international contacts book and experience. Those major deals included Swift Worldwide and Southern Communications.


Stewart Lambert of James Cowper has boosted James Cowper’s corporate finance team since coming across from Tenon, and recent deals include the partial disposal of IntelliFlo and the MBI of Andante Travels. Lambert’s year also included raising development capital for MicroEnsure, fundraising and equity restructuring for


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Roughton Group, and the acquisition of ET Travel by The Appointment Group.


Ian Milne of Spectrum is an experienced corporate banker, most recently with RBS, but now involved in backing some of the region’s largest transactions. Deals done at Spectrum in 2013 included Choice Care. As a corporate financier and adviser, Milne has worked principally on fundraising and debt advisory deals including raising debt for the MBO of Romans, the debt-funded management buyout of Mountain Warehouse and the recapitalisation of Alcumus Group.


Yann Souillard of LDC leads the Reading office of LDC, where the south investment team produced an outstanding 2013 with a record year of investments and profit. Through the year, Souillard spearheaded six new investments with combined committed capital of £100m. One nominator said: “Yann’s experience of MBOs has come to the fore, demonstrating an ability to transact on a broad range of deals."


Andrew Thomson of HMT, last year’s Corporate Finance Adviser of the Year, was now up against his colleague Ian Barton again – already winner of this year’s Adviser of the Year. Thomson leads the highly successful HMT team that advised on over 25 deals in the past 12 months, with an aggregate value in excess of £400m. Thomson’s “market knowledge and


dealmaking skills” were highlighted by clients as 2013 proved another frenetic year of deal completions. Among transactions were Veritek, Elmelin, Unique ID, and Redeem.


Christopher Avery, managing partner of Pitmans, stood ready to present the Dealmaker of the Year trophy.


Giant screens flashed up the audience voting result – the winning name of Yann Souillard, who commented later: "I am delighted we have won two awards tonight – PE Firm of the Year and now Dealmaker of the Year. 2013 was a strong year for us in Reading and I thank our local advisory professionals and banking friends for helping build this success.


“We are eager to play our role in growing an enduring successful reputation for delivering deals in the Thames Valley. Our team and commitment to the region grows with the recent appointment of Christian Bruning. And, last month's completed investment in Connect Communications is, I hope, the first of many new deals in 2014 sourced, advised and completed locally."


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2014


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