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E&Y player to head Arden corporate team
Richard Tyler
Ernst & Young's head of public company finance in the Midlands, Andrew Raca, has resigned to join Arden Partners, one of
Birmingham's newest stockbroking start-ups.
Mr Raca will join the firm next week and begin the search for his number two
as part of Arden's plan to build a national corporate finance
advisory service for middle and small market capitalisation companies.
Mr Raca, a director at D&Y, previously worked with many of Arden's equity salesmen, analysts and traders at Albert
E Sharp, now Arbuthnot Securities.
"I've been talking to them for over size months now and I've been
impressed by what I've heard and seen. They are extremely ambitious and extremely
focused," Mr Raca said.
"They are not an Albert E Sharp mark two. They are approaching things
very professionally. I have been truly impressed by the whole approach they
are taking - it is an extremely powerful entity."
Mr Raca said by teaming up with Arden's broking business, he could offer a better
service than as an independent adviser because the firm could also underwrite
any fund-raising and attract investors through its contacts in the stock
market.
John Paterson, managing director of Arden, said he had talked with between 50 and 60
corporate finance specialists, many of whom lost their jobs in London firms, before choosing Mr Raca to team up with Arden's head of corporate Richard Day, who is based in London.
The E&Y team Mr Raca led has advised on a number of recent corporate
restructuring deals, including acting for the board of Nuneaton-based
aerospace components group L Gardner in its negotiations with its banks.
Arden faces competition for public company advisory work
from the remaining team at E&Y, and the other main accountancy firms in
Birmingham KPMG, Price-waterhouse-Coopers and to a
lesser extent Deloitte & Touche.
Other firms like Grant Thornton and WH Ireland have built or are building
practices advising smaller Alternative Investment Market listed companies.
Arden Partners, based in Edgbaston, launched last
November and has so far secured corporate broking mandates from Pendragon, Aston Villa and Headlam.
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