Orsini carries off Rising Star Award at Rainmakers
UP-and-coming corporate financier Dominic Orsini was celebrating after landing the Rising Star of the Year gong at the Rainmakers Awards for the corporate finance community in the North West.
The investment banker at Manchester-based Altium carried off the award following an online talent poll among his peers for the event at the Hilton Hotel in the city, hosted by TheBusinessDesk.com alongside partners Out There Events.
The award was to recognize the achievements of a lawyer, corporate financier or banker, under the age of 35 who has achieved great things in the sector over the past year.
Interviewed by TheBusinessDesk.com’s editor Joanne Birtwistle, the self-effacing Orsini said: “I am pleasantly surprised to be the winner of this award.”
He said the deal which gave him the most satisfaction was the one for software firm Guestline in March when Altium secured new investment to support the company’s ongoing development.
“We acted as financial adviser to the shareholders of the firm and secured a significant investment from The Riverside Company,” he said.
Other shortlisted contenders included NorthEdge’s Phil Frame, Addleshaw Goddard’s Andrew Green, Palatine Private Equity’s Kieran Lawton and Tom Wildig, also of Palatine.
Another deal which sent ripples across the Northern finance community was the once which landed saw the reverse takeover by Conviviality, trading as Bargain Booze, of Matthew Clark for £198.4m which involved the combined forces of Rothschild, Zeuz Capital, DLA Piper and Eversheds.
It landed the Public Markets Deal of the Year Award, designed to recognize the transaction which has achieved the most significance through either, complexity or strategic importance.
As one of the team receiving the accolade head of corporate finance at Zeus Tremayne Ducker described it as “a transformation deal for Conviviality”.
“Conviviality was a £100m business, buying a company twice its size with a very aggressive Rothschilds-led sales process,” he said.
“We ended up raising more money than the actual value of Conviviality even before the deal, which is pretty unusual. And it makes them a major force in drinks, distribution, with a line retail outlets and wholesale throughout the UK.
“It was a complex process. We had a number of large brewers breathing down our neck trying to do the deal. It obviously quite difficult to convince people that a little old £100m could buy a £200m company. It was great work by the advisors to get the deal delivered in record time.”
Other deals shortlisted deals in the category included the IPO of On the Beach, which raised £96m and give an initial market capitalisation of £240m engineered by PwC and NCC Group’s acquisition of Fox-IT Holding BV for £93.8m funded by a share placing which raised £126.3m involving Rickett Mitchell and Eversheds.
