Investec Corporate and Investment Banking (Investec) has announced five new hires, and the launch of a new private company fundraising team.Since April 2019, Investec has taken its corporate broking and PLC advisory headcount from 65 to 75 people, following a series of senior appointments.
“We have been investing in our corporate finance business while many other banks are in retrenchment mode, and we are already seeing results,” says Jonathan Arrowsmith, Investec’s Head of Advisory. “Our strategy is to build the UK’s best mid-market advisory franchise, spanning the private sector to the public markets. We will continue to invest with focus and discipline to grow our business.”
During 2019, in challenging market conditions, Investec won an additional 46 corporate brokerships. Since the start of 2020, the bank has been appointed as corporate broker to Chesnara plc, GCP Applied Technologies, Blanco Technology Group plc, TBC Bank Group plc, IDH plc and Morgan Advanced Materials plc. Investec now has a total of 129 plc corporate broking clients compared to 95 at the start of April 2019.
Investec has also established a new private company fundraising team, led by Grant Bergman, which will help private companies raise capital. This complements Investec’s broad product offering, including corporate and investment banking, private banking and wealth management.
The five new hires announced today sit across public markets, private companies and financial sponsors:
• Bruce Garrow, who was previously Head of UK Corporate Broking at Goodbody, will be responsible for targeting and winning new corporate broking relationships, as well as identifying IPOs and introducing related corporate finance, ECM, M&A and debt related opportunities to the bank.
• Stephen Ford, who joins to help Investec grow its corporate client book. He has 30 years of industry experience in mid-market equities, most recently running his own business guiding companies on strategy, recruitment and antitrust recovery claims. Prior to that, he headed mid-market equities at Hoare Govett for over 10 years, where he ran a number 1 Extel rated equity sales and research team, and was instrumental in integrating the sales, research and trading platforms into Jefferies following the acquisition of RBS Hoare Govett in 2012.
• Tobias Sommer, who joins Investec from Macquarie’s Financial Sponsor Coverage and Principal Transaction Group. He will cover financial sponsors with a focus on the UK, DACH and Benelux.
• Kate Gribbon, who joins from finnCap Group where she led deal origination, and has over a decade of corporate finance advisory experience, having previously been part of the Consumer M&A teams at Cavendish and Deloitte. She joins Investec’s private companies coverage team, where she will focus on origination to build earlier stage relationships with privately-owned companies across the bank.
• Grant Bergman, who re-joins Investec from finnCap Group, where he headed the private companies fundraising team. He previously spent eight years in Investec’s corporate finance team, and will now lead the newly-formed private companies fundraising team.
This news follows the recent appointments of two healthcare specialists, Jens Lindqvist and Brough Ransom, from N+1 Singer in January 2020.
