Blow to Boyers dream team as Peter Terry opts to stay at Grant Thornton

Jonathan Boyers’ attempts to build a corporate finance advisory dream team at Alvarez & Marsal has been dealt a major blow in the last week with his leading signing Peter Terry reversing his decision to join his former mentor.

Terry will instead stay at Grant Thornton where he is to head up the corporate finance team where Matt Bryden-Smith has been promoted to partner after 10 years with the firm.

Contacted by TheBusinessDesk.com over the weekend Terry confirmed he was staying at Grant Thornton citing “personal reasons”.

Terry and Boyers worked together at KPMG in the 2000s and Terry’s role at A&M was to be as Boyers’ right hand man to build a substantial mid-market corporate finance advisory business out of Manchester, but doing deals across Europe.

The reverse decision is also an early quick win for Grant Thornton’s Mick Frankish who took over as practice lead for the North West at the start of the year, succeeding Carl Williams.

Frankish is now responsible for developing the 450-strong team across the North West who has had over 25 years’ experience across diverse sectors and also sits on the firm’s national Governance Board.

Boyers dramatically quit KPMG at the start of 2023 and has been on extended gardening leave ever since.

Though Terry won’t be part of the heavyweight corporate finance team, it will include at least six of Boyers’ former KPMG colleagues.

Sarah Bannister, Patrick Simpson and James Gaffney have joined as directors, while Sarah Bowen and Hannah Halstead joined as Associate Directors. Deal origination lead Jo Sheerin has also joined the American owned advisory business.

Boyers is still restricted in the work he can do due to the nature of his partnership agreement with KPMG.