Marlborough Partners

Once again, it's that time of year when we send out our annual calendar, now in its 13th edition, to clients, lenders, and lawyers we regularly collaborate with. For those unfamiliar with it, here’s a selection of three cartoons created by Royston in collaboration with the MP team. We would also like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas break!

Our German team (Markus Ehrler, Jan Hoon, Johannes Messing, CFA, Sebastian Achleitner, Felix Finkler) will be delighted to welcome you to their stand at this year's Structured FINANCE Conference!

We are delighted to welcome Jemma Couchman as Head of Infrastructure, based primarily in our London office. Jemma will collaborate closely with colleagues across Europe, broadening MP’s advisory expertise to include the infrastructure finance market. Jemma joins us from Cameron Barney Herbst Hilgenfeldt, where she led the debt advisory practice. With extensive corporate finance expertise across the infrastructure sector, she brings valuable experience from her previous roles at Evercore and Rothschild & Co. “MP is the leading independent pan-European capital structure advisory platform, consistently attracting top talent. Jemma’s hiring marks an exciting milestone as we expand into the infrastructure sector, responding to growing demand for high-quality advice,” said Hamish Buckland, Chair at MP. “Jemma’s close collaboration with the MP team will play a key role in our strategic growth across Europe.”

We are delighted to welcome Nicholas Fawdrey as Managing Director in our London office. Nick brings over 20 years of experience in the debt markets, having held senior positions at leading institutions such as RBS, Lloyds, and Deloitte. His extensive career spans leveraged finance, corporate lending, and restructuring, with a focus in recent years on private equity debt advisory. Nick’s appointment demonstrates our ongoing commitment to strengthening the MP team and our leadership in capital structure advisory - built on technical knowledge, best practices, volume, and network. We look forward to extending these strengths to a broader range of financial sponsors.

We’ve had a very busy return after the summer break at MP (with more exciting news to come…) and we are pleased to share our track record for H1 2024. Over the first six months, our team successfully completed more than 20 transactions, with a significant portion involving complex situations. Given the improved market conditions, our current pipeline is increasingly focused on refinancings (including the resurgence of dividend recaps) and buy-side mandates. A big thank you to everyone we’ve worked with throughout 2024, and congratulations to the MP team!

We are delighted to welcome Sebastian Achleitner as Director of our Frankfurt Office! Sebastian has extensive expertise in capital structuring for both private equity investors and corporates, having gained experience at renowned institutions such as goetzpartners, IKB, and PwC. The strengthening of its Frankfurt office is part of MP’s overall strategic expansion in Europe. With the addition of Sebastian, the company aims to bring its services even closer to the needs of its clients in this important economic region and offer tailored financing solutions.  “Marlborough Partners offers the perfect platform to successfully cover the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Our international network, long-standing experience in the German-speaking market, and excellent positioning enable us to optimally address current challenges in the market”, says Achleitner.

We are delighted to welcome Matthew Sabben-Clare as Senior Advisor! Matthew has extensive experience across private equity and the leveraged debt markets. He is a Senior Advisor to Cinven, the leading international private equity firm, having been Chief Administrative Officer from 2017-2023 and Head of Capital Markets from 2005-2017. Before that, Matthew worked at Merrill Lynch in Leveraged Finance and in Financing & Structured Products at Schroders. He is also Chair of the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA), the industry body and public policy advocate for private equity and venture capital in the UK. Hamish Buckland, Chair of Marlborough Partners, said: "We are delighted to welcome Matthew to our business. His experience and expertise are unique and can be exceptionally helpful to us and our clients as we look to continue MP’s development as the leading independent capital structure advisory firm in Europe. His appointment is a key first step in building out a high-calibre Advisory Board that will help us achieve our ambitious goals." https://lnkd.in/e92DDHGi

We are sincerely delighted to have supported Christian Sabbagh, Travelsoft and CAPZA with our friends at Cambon Partners (Morgann Lesné, Min Liu, Simon Bozec) on these transformative acquisitions. Amazing success story for the French software sector! Thank you to Tikehau Capital and the MP team (Philippe de Courrèges, Alejandro Sosa, Marco Piccioni, Alexandre Pantaleao).

We are pleased to announce that José Tomás González de Canales Cruz has joined Marlborough Partners as a Managing Director and Head of Iberia. José Tomás will be based in Madrid and will help MP further strengthen their existing successful franchise in Iberia, as well as supporting the Firm’s pan-European execution and coverage. José Tomás joins from Crédit Agricole where he was responsible for Debt Advisory in Iberia. He previously worked at Rothschild & Co, Deutsche Bank and Oquendo Corporate in London and Madrid.

Our H2 2023 tombstones include18 deals, taking our total to 38 for 2023. Our activity during this period highlights the strength and breadth of the MP team skill set, having worked on traditional LBOs, P2Ps, refinancings, bolt-ons, sell-side staples, fund financing, covenant re-sets, maturity extensions plus a number of complex stressed situations. Thank you to all the people we have worked with during 2023 and well done to the MP team. As of today, credit markets continue to recover, fostered by the return of capital markets in the US and Europe. This should lead to a wide range of financing opportunities for the remainder of 2024.