This year's annual corporate finance seminar was aimed at companies looking at funding options for a variety of strategies for their business including acquisitions, working capital and succession planning. The options being discussed included private equity, growth funds, IPO and other funding sources.

During the morning we provided a comprehensive overview of the options, challenges and opportunities across sectors provided by speakers with hands-on experience, as well as views from growth and equity funders.

Topics of the morning:

  • the equity landscape

  • what private equity looks for in approaching an opportunity

  • the structuring of private equity with existing and new shareholders

  • managing funding sources from different investors

  • traditional and alternative funding sources

 

You can see the morning's slide deck and our speakers' bios below.

RSm access to finance slide deck

Charlie Jolly, Private Equity Partner, RSM UK

Joining RSM UK in February 2015, Charlie is charged with leading the development of the firm’s private equity business. He is a partner with over 16 years’ experience in the private equity market having worked with a broad range of private equity, venture capital and special situations funds in Europe, providing both corporate finance and non-transactional services.

In addition, he has worked as a placement agent, retained by private equity firms to market their funds to institutional investors in Europe and Asia. Prior to joining RSM, he led the fundraising and investor relations activity in Europe and Asia for one of the world's largest, US-headquartered private equity funds of funds. His experience includes the formation and regulation of private equity funds as well as fundraising and corporate finance.

David Gammie, Investor, BGF

David is a member of BGF’s investment team, where his role is to identify and execute investments for the fund. Since joining BGF in 2013, David has been involved in eight deals, investing more than £60m of capital. David works closely with six portfolio companies and sits on the boards of Renegade Spirits Ireland Limited and Metropolitan European Transport PLC.  

Prior to joining BGF David was a member of PwC’s M&A team. David is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He holds an honours degree in Economics from the University of Glasgow.

Adrian Dunne, Director, AIB Mezzanine Finance

Adrian Dunne is a member of the AIB Mezzanine Finance Team, which specialises in the provision of mezzanine, unitranche and related subordinated debt products to Irish SMEs and Corporate markets. Adrian is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the funding process from deal origination through to execution. Since joining the team in 2016, Adrian has been involved in 12 deals, deploying more than €80m of subordinated capital. Prior to joining AIB, Adrian worked as a Bond Portfolio Manager with a number of leading European financial groups including LBBW (Germany), Nationwide (UK) and Belfius (Belgium).

Ewan Grant, Head of Transactions - Scotland, RSM UK

Ewan is a chartered accountant, a member of the Chartered Securities Institute (MCSI) , and holds the ICAEW Corporate Finance qualification (CF). He worked in Luxembourg for four years and is heavily involved with the RSM Europe transaction advisory services group working with colleagues across Europe and the US.

Having acted as lead adviser on a number of MBO’s, and company acquisitions and disposals, Ewan has highly developed contacts across the globe. He has spoken at RSM European, World Conference and the European Business Awards, and is a member of the London Stock Exchange Regional Advisory Group for Scotland. He served as a non executive to the HSBC Scotland Advisory Group (2008-2010).