Aurelius Equity Opportunities, a pan-European mid-market investor, has made four appointments in its London office.
Karun Dhir and Thomas Pinks have joined the group’s London-based investment team and will assist in the sourcing and execution of Aurelius’ UK investments.
Timothy (Tim) Spillane and Amar Gulati have both joined Aurelius’ UK operational taskforce.
Dhir has over 12 years’ of M&A and Investment experience and specialises in distressed and turnaround situations. Dhir joins Aurelius from Gordon Brothers, where he was responsible for originating and executing investments from across the UK and Europe. Dhir has previously held positions at Lloyds Banking Group, Ernst & Young and Goldman Sachs.
Pinks was formerly at HSBC, where he worked as a senior M&A Associate, managing and assisting on deal execution. Pinks previously worked for both Pöyry Capital and Alegro Capital, where he assisted in the structuring and execution of M&A transactions. Before completing an MSc in Finance at the London School of Economics, Pinks worked as a credit analyst at Mizuho Investment Management.
Spillane, who has over seven years’ experience in advising businesses on restructuring and operational improvement, joins Aurelius from AlixPartners where he was a director in the firm’s turnaround and restructuring team. Prior to this, Spillane worked as a senior consultant for Howrey.
Gulati joins Aurelius from PwC’s operational restructuring team, where he focused on turnaround situations, assisting businesses across Europe with rapid cost reduction and working capital improvement. Gulati is a qualified Chartered Accountant; he began his career at PwC working as a senior associate in assurance.
Tristan Nagler, managing director of Aurelius in the UK, says: “We are extremely pleased to announce these further additions to our team in London. These appointments strengthen Aurelius’ position as a leading investor in the UK market, with Karun bringing significant experience in special situations transactions, and Thomas, Tim and Amar reinforcing our growing investment and operational capabilities as we continue to build our portfolio of UK investments into strong and sustainable businesses.
“We expect to see an increase in the level of corporate-carve out activity in 2017, as businesses look to adapt to the heightened levels of uncertainty that have arisen following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. We have already seen a number of profit warnings from UK PLCs in recent months and with factors including currency pressures and increasing costs impacting corporate performance and prospects post-referendum, we expect to see growing numbers of business leaders looking to evaluate and rationalise their UK operations. Against this backdrop, we are all the more focused on hiring the best talent in order to bolster Aurelius’ specialist capabilities of finding and supporting long-term investment opportunities across a wide range of sectors.”
