EUROPE - Vestar promotes nine

Vestar Capital Partners has made in three promotions across its European offices.

Oussama I. Takla has been promote to managing director while Fabrizio Gualdi and Gregor Hengst have become vice president; and Patrick Hofmann has been promoted to senior associate.

Takla joined Vestar Europe’s Paris office in 2001. Previously, he was in the Corporate Finance and Merchant Banking division of Goldman Sachs and prior to that, he worked at Coopers & Lybrand as a management consultant. He holds an engineering degree from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.

Gualdi joined Vestar Europe's Milan office in 2005 after four years in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department of Morgan Stanley Investment Bank in London and Milan.

Hengst joined Vestar Europe's Munich office as a senior associate in 2008. Previously, he was with McKinsey & Company in Munich and before that was with the international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and with Commerzbank in Cologne.

Hofmann joined Vestar's Munich office as an associate in 2008. Previously, he spent two years in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs in London, and prior to that he worked in several divisions of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt.

The news also include four promotions in the firm’s New York office Evan Marks, Brendan J. Spillane (managing directors) Garrick D. Bernstein (principal) and David N. Kestnbaum (senior associate) as well as the promotion of  John B. Stephens to vice president in the Denver office.