Investec Corporate and Investment Banking (Investec) has appointed Jonathan Arrowsmith to its Investment Banking team as Head of Advisory.
Arrowsmith joins from DC Advisory, where he was a Managing Director and led the business services practice in the UK. He has advised on transactions including the sale of Citation to Hg and the sale of FRA to Dunedin. At Investec, Arrowsmith will lead Investment Banking’s advisory offering, with a particular focus on increasing its private advisory presence and business services capabilities.
In 2018, the Investment Banking team advised on deals with a combined transaction value of GBP20 billion across M&A and ECM, and acted on over one-third of all M&A by value on the UK public market. Transactions included Melrose’s GBP8.1 billion takeover of GKN, Cineworld’s USD3.6 billion acquisition of Regal Entertainment and the GBP7.4 billion merger between GVC and Ladbrokes Coral, as well as MFG’s GBP1.2 billion takeover of MRH.
During 2018, Investec completed a number of successful IPOs including the largest ever Investment Trust IPO, with the admission of Smithson in October 2018 raising GBP822.5 million. Throughout the year Investec used its balance sheet to provide significant equity underwriting support to enable clients to undertake transformational transactions, such as ITE’s GBP300m acquisition of the events business of Ascential.
Arrowsmith says: “Investec had an impressive 2018, advising on some of the year’s largest public UK transactions as well as a wide range of private deals. I am delighted to be joining Investec to help both further build out its business services offering and the wider advisory practice. In particular, there is a very significant competitive and market opportunity for Investec in relation to private companies and I’m really excited to be joining the team to help drive the continuing growth of Investment Banking.”
Andrew Pinder, Investec’s Head of Investment Banking, says: “2018 was a particularly strong year for Investment Banking both in terms of our transactions and the investments we made to further enhance our competitive strength and differentiation. As we begin 2019, Jonathan’s substantial experience will complement a proven team which has strength in both the private and public markets across advisory, lending and risk management solutions.”
Christian Hess, Private Equity Client Group Head at Investec, says: “In an environment where private equity firms are under significant pressure to deploy capital in a crowded market and maintain high returns, a strong and experienced strategic advisory service has never been more important.”