Virtual Corporate Finance Lunch 2021

Richard Hughes

Richard has over 30 years’ experience of corporate activity including flotations, capital raisings, mergers and acquisitions for both public and private companies. Richard was a founder and non-executive director of boohoo.com and is the founder of corporate finance firm Zeus Capital. He backed Crawford Healthcare in 2009 and oversaw the company’s turnaround and sale to US-based Acelity, in a deal which was valued at more than £100m. Richard is also a director of numerous other private companies.

Jodi Birkett is a partner in Deloitte’s Financial Advisory practice. Jodi leads the Transaction Services team in the North West and works across privately owned businesses, private equity houses and their portfolios and listed businesses. Jodi focuses on the Telecoms, Media and Telecoms industries as well as Consumer, including retail, travel and professional services.

Jodi is the Clients and Industries lead for Financial Advisory in the UK and across North South Europe and also leads our TMT sector in the Regions and a member of the UK TMT Exec.

Adrian specialises in UK TMT activities with a particular focus on software and tech-enabled services. He sits on the GCA Global Software Sector Team along with the GCA Global Industrials Team. Adrian has 18 years’ M&A experience across all forms of private and public deals and has advised on 80+ transactions.

Recent deals include the sale of Fuelspricing to US trade buyer PDI; lead advisory and NOMAD on the IPO of Team17; Sale of ResDiary to Accor Hotels; Livingbridge investment in Giacom; sale of stake in Mobysoft to Livingbridge; sale of Mitrefinch to LDC; and sale of Guestline to Riverside.

Adrian joined GCA Altium in 2000.

Javed is a Director at GP Bullhound, based in the Manchester office. Prior to joining the firm, he spent 5 years at Rothschild where he advised on a wide range of UK and international engagements including private equity and corporate transactions, IPOs and fundraisings.

Before that, Javed worked at Deloitte LLP in the Corporate Finance M&A Advisory team, focusing on a range of mid-market transactions.  Javed graduated from the University of Manchester with a BA (Hons) in International Business, Finance and Economics.

Jess Jackson is an investment manager at Praetura Ventures and is responsible for identifying and managing investment opportunities for our EIS Growth Fund and the GMC Life Sciences Fund By Praetura. Jess boasts a wealth of experience working with startups across multiple sectors, including businesses with a social impact focus and is a well-known figure in the North’s investment scene. She is a founding member of Fund Her North – a collective which champions investment opportunities for women – and regularly gives talks around this subject and the early-stage investment market. Prior to joining Praetura Ventures, Jess managed fund deployment at GC Angels and HNWI Capital.

Anthony is a keen supporter of North West Business Community, being a Director and former Chair of pro-manchester, and member of the pro-manchester Fintech committee. Anthony is also a board director and investor in a number of businesses in the region with specific focus on financial services and technology.

Anthony co-founded OpenMoney and is passionate about making financial advice accessible and affordable to everyone. He has considerable experience of the financial services industry, most recently as a founding partner of Tatton Asset Management plc. Previously, he was a consultant at both Arthur Anderson and KPMG, specialising in regulatory, performance and strategic issues for the life and pensions sector.

Jane is an experienced research professional, having started her career in 1995 as a researcher for Corpfin, which was a small family owned business based in Manchester, before becoming part of Experian in 2008. Her team capture mergers and acquisitions data, produce quarterly insights looking at trends in the market as well as compile league tables for the most active corporate finance professionals.

Jane lives in South Manchester, with her husband, and black Labrador Lucy. Outside of work, she enjoy holidays in Tenerife, Wales and Cornwall, and is looking forward to being able to travel again soon (especially to Cornwall for the surfing (very amateur!) on Fistral Beach).

Guy is in the Investment Team at Praetura Ventures focused on investing equity into early stage businesses. Praetura Ventures is a Manchester headquartered venture capital firm with  over 30 people and 22 companies in the portfolio.

The Praetura Ventures focuses on backing high growth business with equity capital in addition to more than money support.

Guy has a focus on energy , SaaS and Fintech. His recent deals include BankiFi, Transreport and Enthuse . Guy sits on the boards of IOT energy technology business SteamaCo and artificial intelligence business Futr.

Jeremy leads Cole Associates Corporate Finance (www.cole-group.co.uk), one of Manchester’s longest-established corporate finance ‘boutiques’. Cole Associates advise clients on acquisitions, management buy-outs and buy-ins, company sales and raising finance for growth. Jeremy was previously with PWC, including 3 years in the States.

Simone Masterson is a Manager in the Transaction Services team at EY and has been involved in various deals in the North West. Notable recent deals include ECI’s investment in Mobysoft and Advent’s acquisition of Hermes.