Goldman Sachs mid-market PE team makes hires

Katharine Hidalgo
03 December 2019

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Goldman Sachs has recruited senior members for its team dedicated to the mid-market and will continue to make hires in 2020.

Recruitment for the firm's dedicated mid-market private equity investment banking team in EMEA – dubbed the cross-markets group – was initiated in March 2019. Managing director Rob Pulford, who leads the team, said: "The team isn't doing anything new, we're just dedicating people to the mid-market, including private equity, where we think we can increase market share."

Esma Yildiz will head up mid-market sponsor coverage for the team. She joins from Arma Partners, where she was head of financial sponsors.

Sergeij Hierner has joined from Deutsche Bank to lead the team in Belgium. Thomas Westin recently joined from Barclays, where he was the co-head of Nordic investment banking. He now leads the team's efforts in Sweden. Mahir Zaimouglu also joins the groups M&A team and was previously head of sponsor M&A at JP Morgan.

The cross-markets team, which has now reached a headcount of 50 in EMEA, focuses on private equity and family-owned public companies with an enterprise value of $500m-2bn. Pulford expects to generate significant revenues from M&A, as well as financing. He also said the team will now be better placed to assist with buy-and-build strategies by sourcing add-on acquisitions.

The cross-markets group is managed mainly on a country-by-country basis. Several internal managing directors joined to lead the team's efforts in Europe. Celine Mechain is heading up the team in France, Tobias Koester in Germany and Jose Barreto in the UK. In addition, other senior internal moves include Amit Pilowsky, who is leading consumer markets and principal for the team, and Devin Wilde, who has joined the M&A team in the cross-markets group.

The team has assisted on several deals to date, including the sale of Netherlands-based Vermaat Groep to Bridgepoint for Partners Group. Pulford said the firm has picked up a number of live mandates that the team is currently working on.