GCA Altium reinforces Manchester team with hires and promotions

Global investment bank GCA Altium has strengthened its Manchester team with two promotions and two new hires.

Mark Smith has been promoted to Director, after five years at GCA Altium. Mark has advised on over £700m of transactions in the last year, including the investment in UKFast by Inflexion in a £406m deal, and the sale of Sofology to DFS Furniture Plc.

Alongside this, Phil Chadwick has been promoted to Vice President, having worked at GCA Altium for two years, and has recently been involved in advising on deals including UKFast and the backing of Cloud Technology Solutions by North Edge Capital. Previously, Phil worked on over 25 transactions as a member of PWC’s Transaction Services team. 

In addition, joining the team as Associates are Alex Ford and Gabrielle Worrall. Alex joined from PWC where she worked in M&A for three years. Gabrielle joined from Deloitte where she gained experience in equity capital markets and audit and assurance.

The strengthened team will support the firm’s growing number of transactions. The investment bank closed 145 global deals in 2018, over a third of which were cross-border. The new hires increase the Manchester M&A team headcount to 18.

Simon Lord, Managing Director at GCA Altium, said: “We are very pleased to welcome our new hires into the fold at a very exciting time for the firm. It is also pleasing to see Phil and Mark progress through the business as our expanding business provides career development for all members of the team.

“The market in the North West offers a great career opportunity, especially in M&A, as the market is so well advised and is attracting high profile deals. For example, more than a quarter of the UK’s fastest-growing northern tech companies are based in the region and tech represents a significant proportion of GCA Altium’s deal flow. This represents a great opportunity for our newly bolstered Manchester team to tap into this growing marketplace.”