William Blair launches Madrid office, adds investment banking practice in Zurich

Ero Partsakoulaki
12 December 2022

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William Blair has opened an office in Madrid and added investment banking capabilities to its Zurich office.

The financial advisory firm aims to expand its European presence and build an on-the-ground presence in Iberia, an important market for its activities, according to a press release.

Álvaro Hernández, the managing director and head of Iberia coverage within the financial sponsor's group, will lead the Madrid office. Hernández joined the firm's London office in 2019, advising private equity funds and management teams, as well as both public and private multinational and local-market companies, on domestic and cross-border transactions.

The new office will cover all William Blair's standard sectors and clients of the firm, Hernández told Unquote. The move constitutes a deepening of the firm's ongoing activity in the region, following a number of deals advising both corporates, as well as domestic and international private equity funds. There's a "growing, upcoming and very solid" community of Iberian PE funds in the range of EUR 600m to EUR 800m that invest in the region, he said. William Blair has already been working with these players but having a local presence will serve them "much better," he said.

"Iberia is an easy extension for us because 95% of our existing clients in the UK and the US already have offices and investments there," he said. "This is extremely helpful as we're extending our capabilities to serve clients in regions where we haven't been physically located."

The firm plans to build a team based in Madrid over 2023 and beyond, he said. As it had always considered Iberia a key pillar of its European strategy, it has for the last couple of years been building a team in London with both Spanish and Portuguese speakers across different sectors, he added.

The new team based in Madrid will consist of both internal transfers and new hires.

In Zurich, where the firm has maintained a long-standing presence for its institutional investment clients, William Blair will enhance its footprint with the addition of investment banking capabilities, initially focused on healthcare, it said.

William Blair's investment banking expansion across Europe builds on the firm's addition of six senior-level bankers covering multiple sectors in 2022, as reported.

As an independent and employee-owned firm, together with its strategic partners, including Allier Capital, BDA Partners and Poalim Capital Markets, William Blair operates in more than 20 offices worldwide. From 2017 to 2021, the team advised on more than USD 680bn in completed transaction volume.