Great Rock Capital, an asset-focused commercial finance company specialising in middle market lending, has appointed Ronnie Bloom as Managing Director of Originations. Bloom will be based in Toronto and will be responsible for building relationships, sourcing investment opportunities, and driving the continued expansion of the firm’s footprint in the Canadian market.   “We are happy to welcome Ronnie to the team,” says Stuart Armstrong, CEO of Great Rock Capital.  “Ronnie’s extensive banking and financial expertise, coupled with his established industry relationships in the Canadian market, will help drive the growth of Great Rock in this important market.”   Bloom joins Great Rock Capital with

Drooms, a provider of secure cloud solutions in Europe, is strengthening its presence in the UK with the appointments of Ditte Nielsen as Senior Business Development Manager and Alessandra Azzena as Business Development Manager. Nielsen and Azzena will be responsible for the development of business relationships, with a focus on the UK real estate sector and new customer acquisition, including account planning, CRM and event liaison as well as continuing to strengthen Drooms’ presence in the UK.  They will report to Rosanna Woods, Managing Director of Drooms UK.   Prior to joining Drooms, Ditte was Senior Account Manager at Merrill

RBC Capital Markets has made two new senior hires – Florent Cassabois joining as RBC as Head of Leveraged Finance based in France and David Brand as a Managing Director in the Central Funding Group based in London. In his newly-created role, Cassabois will be based in Paris and report to Ed Dickinson, European Head of Leveraged Finance from a product perspective and Eric Meyer, Head of France from a country perspective. Cassabois joins from HSBC, where he was a Managing Director and the Co-Head of Leveraged and Acquisition Finance France, with responsibility for a team covering both investment grade

CDC has appointed Tony Morgan as its new Managing Director, Direct Equity. Morgan will lead a team over 100 impact investment professionals in CDC’s Direct Equity division and will report directly to Chief Executive Nick O’Donohoe. Morgan has nearly 20 years’ experience as an equity investor. He has held senior roles at Permira, Alchemy Partners, CPPIB* and most recently, as a Managing Director of Onex. His investment experience brings huge value that will support CDC in its commitment to invest USD6 billion from 2018 – 2021 across Africa and Asia, as it works towards the UN Global Goals.   CDC

The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm focused on the smaller end of the middle market, has appointed Sean Ozbolt Managing Partner. Ozbolt will lead Riverside’s new initiative focused on value investing. “We are thrilled to have Sean join our team of more than 300 Riversiders across the world,” says Riverside Co-CEO Stewart Kohl. “Sean’s depth of experience and reputation precede him, and we believe his strategic approach, cultural attributes and turnaround track record make him a perfect fit for the firm at this point in our development as well as the economic cycle.”   Ozbolt brings more than

Alternative investment firm EnTrust Global has appointed Matt Meissner as a Vice President focused on investment research in the firm’s private debt and real assets division. Meissner, with more than 15 years’ experience in the aviation industry, joins EnTrust Global from Blue Moon Analytics, a cloud-based analytical platform he founded for aircraft lease pricing and maintenance forecasting. Prior to founding Blue Moon, Meissner served as a Vice President at CIT Aerospace, where he spearheaded the development of advanced financial models used to analyse investments throughout the commercial aircraft capital structure and was an integral part of structuring and managing a

French private equity firm Activa Capital has appointed Amira Oueld-El Hachemi as Finance Department Analyst. This appointment is in line with Activa Capital’s development strategy, which aims to strengthen its Finance Department.   Oueld-El Hachemi will manage the Activa Capital funds under the direction of Alexandre Chollet, Chief Finance Officer.   Oueld-El Hachemi is a graduate of SKEMA Business School. She joins Activa Capital after prior experience at Essling Capital and Weinberg Capital Partners.

Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) has appointed Pierre Vinci as the new General Manager of its London Branch.  Vinci joins from ABN AMRO where he was the Head of Corporate and International Origination within the UK branch’s Asset Based Finance business line. Prior to that, he worked for GE Capital where he spent ten years executing high profile structured financings in the larger UK and European mid-market.  “I am delighted to be joining such a long-standing and prestigious institution as CIC London. We have the ambition to continue to grow the business in the London marketplace, in line with our

Mid Europa Partners (Mid Europa), a private equity investor in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), has opened an office in Bucharest, Romania, further deepening its local presence in the country. The firm has also promoted Alain Beyens, its Operating Partner, to equity partner.   Matthew Strassberg, Co-Managing Partner of Mid Europa, says: “The opening of the Bucharest office represents a natural progression of our commitment to Romania, following our increased activity in response to the long-term re-rating of the investment climate in Romania. Since 2015, we have invested nearly €0.5 billion into Profi, the leading Romanian proximity supermarket chain, Regina