People moves

Advent International nabs UniCredit CEE chief

One of the biggest names in Central & Eastern European leveraged finance, Peter Nachtnebel, has hung up his banking boots to join Advent International. This marks one of a string of such moves across Europe, where lenders have changed their spots to become buyout chiefs (of course some would argue the risky practice of many leverage lenders in the last two years means the spots haven't had to move much). Nachtnebel joins from UniCredit, where he was managing director, head of financial sponsors & leveraged finance.

"We've known Peter for ten years so we understand his strengths and ability to really do deals," says Advent's Chris Mruck, who was promoted to managing partner at the firm in January 2008. Much of this relationship was on the back of lucrative partnering on deals: Mruck reckons a significant portion of Advent's current portfolio has UniCredit debt in it.

At the end of last year, Nordic banking giant SEB saw two of its heavyweights head to buyout houses: Anders Bierke, SEB's former local head of acquisition finance, moved to Altor, while his colleague Erik Thorell joined Segulah. More recently, Deutsche Bank's Ian Jackson joined as director of Carlyle Strategic Partners (CSP), Carlyle's global distressed and corporate opportunities group that invests in debt and equity of financially distressed companies.

Nachtnebel will be joining Advent's CEE equity team from 1 March, not the in-house debt team, which Advent International has had for approximately two years. Nachtnebel's role at Advent will be like that of other deal doers - trawling the region by being out in the market. "We've just raised a fund, so we have cash and we want to do deals. We are open for business!" Mruck says, speaking of the EUR1bn Advent closed in April 2008.

Though most agree freshly lined coffers are an asset in these times of unreliable LPs, cynics point out it's an incredibly difficult time to deploy capital. Mruck disagrees: "The pressure in the markets may actually shake free some deals that would not have been around last year. The crisis may mean some founders are more inclined to sell their businesses," he says, referring to majority buyouts. Historically, buyout houses have often had to settle for minority stakes parted with by reluctant vendors. "Also, perfectly viable businesses that just can't get capital anywhere else will turn to private equity for funding."

Another plus for buyout houses in CEE is that all-equity deals, just now picking up steam in Western Europe, is familiar territory for incumbent buyout houses, since debt was extremely scarce before 2003 or 2004, with most deals before that time being done just with equity. Advent CEE's third fund did a couple of all-equity deals in Romania, only bringing on debt for follow-on funding to support bolt-on acquisitions.

There is a final bit of good news for Advent and other incumbent CEE buyout houses: some of the pan-European GPs which have been testing the waters and driving up competition in the last couple years may retrench as suddenly risk-averse LPs cast watchful eyes over their GPs. Says one gatekeeper: "You can imagine LPs thinking 'CEE is a market you don't know, where the pricing is not clear, and there remain deal opportunities in your core markets...' and not being too impressed by some GPs taking on perceived additional risk in today's market." Indeed Carlyle Group closed shop in Warsaw just 10 months after opening last year (the second time in a decade the buyout giant did an about-face in the region).

TVM Capital

TVM Capital has promoted Dr Peter Neubeck to principal. Dr Peter Neubeck joined the TVM Capital Life Sciences Practice in early 2008 as a senior associate, based in Munich. As a principal, he will be involved in investment management, deal origination and the evaluation of new investments with an emphasis on clinical development stage to commercial stage investments.

Prior to joining TVM Capital, Dr Neubeck worked at Novartis Pharma as Global Project Leader for the Cardiovascular & Metabolism Business Franchise, and was responsible for the life cycle strategy and development of the antihypertensive Rasilez(R)/Tekturna(R), including the recent FDA approval of the first fixed dose combination Tekturna HCT(R). He has completed his medical studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munchen and Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA degree from INSEAD.

Vestar Capital Partners

Vestar Capital Partners has promoted Daniel Boege to executive director. Boege joined Vestar in 2007 and is currently a member of Vestar Europe in the Munich office. Previously, Boege was with Permira in Frankfurt, Germany, and prior to that he was a business consultant with Accenture in London.

Ventizz

Ventizz Capital Partners has hired Christian Sarwa as investment professional for the St Gallen-based team. This brings the group's headcount in Duesseldorf and St Gallen to 13.

Before joining Ventizz, Christian Sarwa was employed by NBGI Private Equity as an investment manager for their London and Zurich office. At NBGI he managed a private equity/venture capital fund specialising in European technology investments, with a total volume of EUR90 million. In addition, Christian Sarwa was a member of the supervisory board of two portfolio companies in the medical technology sector. Prior to NBGI, he worked as a consultant with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

Sal Oppenheim

Sal Oppenheim Private Equity Partners, a merger of CAM Private Equity, VCM Capital Management and the alternative investment division of the Sal Oppenheim Group, has expanded its sales force with the addition of Jan Graf von Bassewitz and Sabine Rummel.

Previously, von Bassewitz was in charge of advising pension funds and insurance companies, mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as partner at CAM Private Equity. He will have the same task in the new entity, Sal Oppenheim Private Equity Partners.

Prior to his work at CAM, Mr. von Bassewitz was partner at Warburg Alternative Investments AG in Zurich for three years, where he was responsible for institutional fundraising. Before this, he founded Auda (Deutschland) GmbH in January 2002 where he served as managing director, handling the structuring and placement of private equity and funds-of-hedge-funds in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Benelux countries and Italy, for New York-based Auda Advisors Associates. At HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt in Dusseldorf, he managed the alternative investment and relationship management department for institutional clients for more than four years.

Sabine Rummel has joined Sal Oppenheim Private Equity Partners as sales manager and will be focusing in particular on investors in the non-German-speaking countries within Europe. After finishing her master's degree in International Economic Studies at the University of Maastricht in 2002, Rummel worked at the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) in Brussels for six years. In her role as an economic and industry analyst, she was most recently responsible for the association's qualitative studies on private equity markets. In addition to this, she supported the association in its investor relations and business development activities.

K&L Gates

K&L Gates has established its second office in Germany and the firm's 29th worldwide with the opening of a Frankfurt location, which includes the addition of partners Dr Mathias Schulze Steinen and Dr Frank Thomas. The move comes two years after the launch of K&L Gates' practice in Berlin and boosts the firm's total number of German lawyers to 40 across two offices.

New partner Frank Thomas and his colleagues form the core of the firm's German banking and finance team, expanding the global practice into the German market and Frankfurt to better address the needs of current and future German national clients, particularly in the corporate and transactional areas. Thomas specialises in equipment leasing. The Frankfurt team, which initially will focus on extending the firm's corporate, M&A and finance capabilities, is expected to grow quickly in other areas.

Schoenherr

Schoenherr has promoted three to partner in its Vienna office. Florian Cvak specialises in M&A, private equity and corporate finance. Cvak has advised on a number of big-ticket transactions across SEE/CEE. His clients include blue-chips, established and upcoming private equity houses and also upcoming local venture capital firms.

Alexander Popp specialises in mergers & acquisitions, with a particular focus on Central Eastern Europe and the CIS region. Popp frequently acts for clients in the financial, energy and telecommunications industries. He was involved in establishing the firm's Kyiv office, which he headed between 2006 and 2007.

Gudrun Stangl advises major domestic and multinational corporations in all aspects of mergers & acquisitions, including acquisition financings, in Austria and CEE. Stangl also has extensive experience in energy transactions, including upstream oil & gas acquisitions and the corporate structuring of E&P projects.

White & Case

White and Case has hired Dr Carlos Mack as local partner in its Munich office. Dr Mack boosts the firm's restructuring and insolvency practice. He has joined from Brinkman & Partner, where he worked for seven years. Previous mandates include the insolvencies of Druckerei Aubele and Luna Park GmbH and the restructuring of Ihr Platz.

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