Press Releases and Articles

Changes at Arden

John Paterson, the driving force behind the formation of Arden Partners two years ago, has left the Birmingham stockbroker to join Elba Investments, a private investment vehicle set up by Terry Gateley.
And Bill Melly, who headed the Birmingham office of the broker Williams de Broe, is joining Arden. The moves continue a flurry of changes in the city’s broking world, which has kept tongues wagging.

Mr Gateley, a non-executive director of IMI and former head of UK regions at KPMG, is also on the advisory board of the venture capital company Alchemy, the group that once tried to buy Rover.
Mr Paterson will remain a consultant at Arden and is expected to become a non-executive director of companies that Arden brings to the stock market in the future.

Mr Gateley said he started Elba four years ago to invest in private West Midlands companies. It has no connection with Alchemy, he insisted.
“It is nothing elaborate,” he added. “We take stakes in start-ups and private companies. We work with individuals who need some money, cross your fingers and hope that the companies go well – and pray.” Of Mr Paterson’s appointment, he said: “It is good to bounce ideas off someone else.”
The news came yesterday as Arden, owned by 13 founder directors, recruited Mr Melly, who parted company with Williams de Broe at the end of May. Mr Melly, aged 56, will join Arden’s institutional sales team on January 2.

“We have recently made a number of other high-profile signings and I am sure that Bill won’t be the last,” said Trevor Norris, Arden’s chief operating officer.
“We have already strengthened our corporate department significantly by recruiting talented individuals such as Tony Bartlett (formerly chief-executive of Beeson Gregory), Graeme Cull (formerly head of corporate broking at Arbuthnot), and Paul Davies (formerly a senior corporate finance executive at Collins Stewart).
Arden now acts as a broker to 16 companies and is poised to make its second initial public offering next month.

Williams de Broe, which has not replaced Mr Melly, is expected to appoint Richard Welton shortly to head its small capital corporate broking operation in Birmingham. He will be supported by Tim Goodman.
The duo resigned from Arbuthnot Securities in September without saying where they were heading. Arbuthnot then decided to run down its Birmingham activity and concentrate on corporate broking from London.
Before Mr Melly left Williams be Broe, Steve Medlicott quit, heading a team to set up a Birmingham operation for the rival small-company specialist Peel Hunt.