M & A Appointments

Association for Corporate Growth – ACG Boston, Association for Corporate Growth’s Boston Chapter, has named nine new members to its board of directors. New members include: Jeff Bistrong, managing director and co-founder of the Boston office of Harris Williams. Alan Botsford, partner at Parthenon Capital. Rick Daniels, VP of corporate strategy and business development at Polaroid. Jack Gaziano, SVP of Silicon Valley Bank. Lea Pendleton, partner of Morse Barnes-Brown & Pendleton. Janice Shields, managing director and co-founder of Shields & Co. Alice Sloan, director of business development at Grant Thornton. David Spieler, managing director and city leader at Duff & Phelps. Tyler Wick, co-founder of later-stage venture capital firm Ticonderoga. Bryan Cave – The firm tapped David Schaffer as a partner in Chicago. He focuses on M&A, restructuring, and securities transactions. Previously, he had been with Gardner Carton & Douglas. Carlyle Group – Marco De Benedetti, former CEO of Telecom Italia Mobile, has been named a managing director and head of Carlyle’s Italian buyout team, based in Milan. Catterton Partners – Former Dell VP Michael Farello joined the firm as a partner. Most recently, he had been VP of U.S. consumer marketing and e-business at the computer company CID Capital – This Indianapolis-based PE firm promoted Steve Cobb to managing director, in which capacity he focuses on LBOs and recaps. Cobb joined CID Capital in 2001 after serving as a finance manager at Procter & Gamble. Cravath, Swaine & Moore – Moving up the ranks at the firm are corporate attorneys Joel Herold, George Schoen, and Erik Tavzel, who became partners. DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US – Beijing is home to the firm’s newest office. DLA Piper recently acquired a large slice of Coudert Brothers’ Beijing practice, bringing aboard former Coudert executive board member and china practice managing partner Tao Jingzhou, who now runs DLA Piper’s Beijing operation. Partners Janet Tang, M&A; Rocky Lee, corporate finance, IT, and communications; and Matt Adler, U.S. corporate and capital markets, round out the team. Dresner Investment Services – This Chicago-based mid-market investment bank named Ejaz Elahi as VP of health care investment banking. Previously, Elahi had served as a founding partner at diagnostic imaging company Life Sciences Group. Before that, he spent four years at Ponder & Co., where he co-established the firm’s health care services M&A practice. Evercore Partners – Brian Roberts has been tapped to establish the firm’s corporate advisory services in San Francisco. Roberts joined Evercore from Microsoft, where he led a corporate development group that evaluated the software maker’s acquisitions and investments. Fulbright & Jaworski – PE and venture capital deals attorney George Dolatly left King & Spalding for a partnership position at the New York office of Fulbright & Jaworski, in the corporate practice. He specializes in private equity and venture capital transactions, M&A, and corporate finance. Goldsmith Agio Helms – Stephen Miles and Craig Korte, formerly of Brown, Gibbons, Lang, joined Goldsmith Agio in Chicago. Miles had been a managing director and principal at BGL, advising mid-market companies on M&A, corporate restructuring, and debt and equity placements. Korte had been a director at BGL, where he focused on M&A and private placements. Greenhill & Co. – Dhiren Shah joined the firm as a managing director, based in New York. Shah, who had led Morgan Stanley’s global technology investment banking group since 2000, focuses on advisory opportunities in the technology space. He will also play a leadership role in helping the firm expand its capabilities in Asia. In other news, Robert Smith joined Greenhill as a managing director, based in New York. Smith, who most recently had been co-head of financial institutions M&A at Citigroup, focuses on advisory opportunities in the financial institutions sector. GreenShift Corp. – Thomas Scozzafava has joined GreenShift as its VP of acquisitions and strategic investments. Previously, Scozzafava founded and served as CFO of WiseBuys Stores, and from 1997 until 2002, he had been a director of Prudential’s merchant banking group. GreenShift develops and support companies and technologies that facilitate the efficient use of natural resources. GTECH Holdings – Gaming technology and services provider GTECH has promoted Atul Bali to VP of corporate development and strategic planning. Bali joined the company in 1997 and most recently had served as VP of global business development. Lane, Berry – The firm named Bob Lockwood as a managing director for its technology investment, consumer, and industrial and manufacturing groups. Lockwood, who is based in Boston, previously had spent more than 11 years with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and its successor, Credit Suisse First Boston. Lincoln Partners – Chicago-based Lincoln Partners hired Michael Iannelli as an SVP and senior member of its business services industry group. Previously, Iannelli spent six years at PE firm Svoboda Collins, where he led the firm’s business services investing efforts. Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy – The law firm recently named four attorneys to partnership positions in its global corporate practice: John Franchini (New York office), Brett Goldblatt (Los Angeles), Ulrike Dormann (Munich), and Darrel Holstein (Tokyo). Nixon Peabody – Corporate attorney Jeffrey Selman recently joined the firm as counsel, and represents public and private companies in the technology and life science sectors. Previously, he had been with Heller Ehrman. Olympus Partners – Olympus VP Manu Bettegowda has been promoted to partner. He joined the firm in 1998 as an analyst and was named a VP in 2003. Before coming to Olympus, he worked at Bowles Hollowell Conner & Co., where he focused on M&A, LBOs, and refinancing of mid-market companies. Robert W. Baird – Fortifying its transatlantic operations, the firm opened a new office in Frankfurt, Germany – Robert W. Baird GmbH – which provides M&A advisory services in the industrials sector and the middle market. The office is managed by Michael Wolff, a 13-year veteran in the German investment banking industry who was previously with Deutsche Bank. Ryan Beck – Robert Von Furth joined the firm as a managing director and is responsible for originating and structuring consumer products and services deals. Previously, he had been a managing director at Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett – The law firm recently named a number of attorneys to partnership positions in its corporate practice: In New York, the new partners are Richard Fenyes, Jennifer Hobbs, Jaime Mercado, William Sheehan, and Andrew Smith. Other new partners include Youngjin Sohn, Hong Kong, and Thomas Wuchenich, Los Angeles. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom – The firm raided Linklaters to bolster its developing Hong Kong M&A and corporate finance practice. Former Linklaters partner Dominic Tsun joined Skadden’s Hong Kong office as the secondpartner and co-head of the office’s new corporate finance and M&A practice, which was officially launched in October. Tsun works with co-head Nick Norris, who left Simmons & Simmons in July to launch the new group. Norris was previously head of Simmons’ China corporate group. In other news, former Shearman & Sterling corporate partner Adrian Knight joined Skaddens European M&A practice. Knight established Shearman’s U.K. corporate practice. Texas Pacific Group – The firm and its Asia-based affiliate, Newbridge Capital, announced that Steven Schneider joined both firms as a partner. Based in Hong Kong, he leads the Asian activities of the two firms’ operations group. Schneider, a 20-year General Electric veteran, most recently had been president and CEO of GE Asia Pacific. UBS – The firm reshuffled its M&A business, naming London-based Piero Novelli and Los Angeles-based Jeffrey Raich as joint global heads of M&A. Novelli joined UBS in 2004 as head of European M&A in London. Prior to that, he headed the European M&A and European industrials efforts at Merrill Lynch. Raich joined UBS in 2001 and was appointed co-head of M&A in the Americas in 2004. Before joining the firm, he had been with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Tom Cooper succeeds Novelli in London as head of European M&A. He joined S.G. Warburg in 1988. James Neissa, previously joint global head of M&A at the firm, has been named chairman of the division, in which capacity he’s responsible for managing UBS’ s global M&A business. And Lee LeBrun, based in New York, will take over from Raich as co-head of M&A Americas, along with Cary Kochman. Viacom – Wade Davis has been named SVP of M&A for the new Viacom, following the separation of the organization into two publicly traded companies. Prior to joining Viacom, Davis had been a technology and media-focused investment banker for more than a decade, most recently serving as a managing director, co-head of investment banking, and head of M&A at ThinkEquity Partners. Warburg Pincus – The firm has brought aboard David Coulter as a managing director and senior adviser, focused on the financial services industry. Coulter was most recently vice chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase. Wicks Communications & Media Partners III – Daniel Black and Jamie Weston have been named partners of the firm. Black joined Wicks Group, manager of this PE fund, as a principal in July 2003 and since then has been involved in the acquisition, financing, strategy development, and operational planning of many of the firm’s portfolio investments. Prior to joining Wicks, Black had been a managing director and co-head of merchant banking at BNY Capital Markets. Weston joined Wicks Group in July 1995 as a VP and had served as a principal since September 1998. Prior to joining Wicks, Weston worked in the corporate finance group at IBJ Schroder Bank & Trust, focusing on mid-market M&A and LBOs in the media and communications industries. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr- Patrick Cammarata rejoined the firm as counsel in its corporate department. He is based in Boston. Cammarata had left Wilmer Cutler in 2003 to serve as associate general counsel at DoubleClick. Note: In the Changing Scene’ feature in the November issue, the location of Wagner & Associates was incorrectly identified as Wellington, Fla. The firm is actually based in La Quinta, Calif. (c) 2006 Mergers and Acquisitions Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.majournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com