27 May 2008, Paris – Close Brothers, one of Europe’s leading independent corporate finance advisers, has appointed a new Partner in its French office to cover a number of advisory areas including the coverage of the financial sponsors community; and the transport and logistics sectors.

Gwénaël de Sagazan joins Close Brothers France from the investment banking division of HSBC France, where he has been for fifteen years.  During his time at HSBC, Gwénaël focused on middle-market financial sponsors coverage, with a particular focus on the transport, logistics and retail sectors.  The size of deals he advised on ranged from €75 million to €1.4 billion. Prior to HSBC Gwénaël spent six years with Morgan Grenfell and before that he was with the oil major, Total.

In 2007 Close Brothers France advised on 45 deals with a total value of over €3.6 billion, of which close to half were private equity related transactions.  Close Brothers was recently voted French M&A adviser of the Year by Private Equity Magazine.

Commenting on Gwénaël’s appointment, Stephen Aulsebrook, Chief Executive of Close Brothers Corporate Finance, said:

“We are delighted to have Gwénaël on board.  He is a well recognised name in the French advisory community and to have someone of his seniority joining Close Brothers not only reinforces the strength of our business in France, but also the independent advisory model.”

In 2007 39% of all global M&A deals, with a value of over $1,400 billion, involved an independent adviser.

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