Great to see PCB Partners named in the Spear’s Magazine 500 this year – the only M&A company to make the list.
https://spears500.com/profile/SPAC743/pcb-partners/
And well deserved recognition for PCB founder Ben Doltis who also makes the list in a personal capacity.
https://spears500.com/profile/SPA829/ben-doltis/
PCB Partners, global M&A advisory firm serving digital and consulting businesses, appoints the founder and first CEO of Accenture Interactive, Tim Breene, as Strategic Advisor to the Board.
We’re pleased to announce that after several months of exploratory discussions and following his recent retirement as CEO of World Relief, Tim Breene, the Founder and first CEO of Accenture Interactive, has now been formally appointed by PCB Partners as Senior Advisor to support the leadership team with its global expansion plans. Tim’s previous leadership positions included Accenture’s Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer and Group Chief Executive of Business Consulting. Tim has also held Board and Advisory Board positions with a variety of start-up companies and in private equity, as well as being a Partner with McKinsey.
Ben Doltis, Co-Founder of PCB Partners commented, “Tim’s achievements at Accenture and thereafter have transformed the global technology and consulting industry. I’m delighted to have Tim’s deep leadership experience, industry knowledge and relationships supporting PCB’s senior leadership team and our global clients.”
Tim is based in Boston and will work closely with Ramone Param, PCB Partners recently appointed Managing Director for North America. PCB Partners business is seeing growing new opportunities in the region and has strengthened its presence and leadership on the ground to better serve its regional clients. PCB’s presence in the US supports the firm’s global team headquartered in London with additional presence in Mumbai, Shanghai, Sydney and Tel Aviv.
Tim commented, “PCB Partners is creating something truly differentiated in the industry. I’m very excited to be supporting the leadership team as we take PCB to the next stage in its global development.”
About PCB Partners (www.pcbpartners.co.uk)
PCB Partners provides buy-side and sell-side services, with a focus on disruptive technologies, digital transformation, management consulting and creative marketing services businesses. Ben Doltis founded PCB Partners with one-time LDC Managing Director, Tim Farazmand in 2018. The leadership have built a world class team of some 20 people, from diverse backgrounds. In order to achieve their objectives, it was important for PCB to hire outside of traditional M&A staff and attract entrepreneurs who had first-hand experience of buying and selling their own companies. In addition to Tim, these have included Ramone Param (ex-PwC and Equiteq North America), Brett Newland (ex-Accenture Security COO), Peter Jacobs (former PwC senior partner), Mark Casement (PwC), and advisor Andrew Bloch (Founder of Frank PR) in the UK; Animesh Parihar (ex-Head of Global Delivery at Finastra) in India, Sunnie De Grow in Shanghai (PwC Corporate Development) Matthew Melhuish (Founder of BMF and former Enero CEO) in Australia and advisor Erez Benovich in Israel. The firm have also invested in a dedicated research team with strong relationships with academia and industry associations. In a short space of time PCB Partners has created a new kind of M&A Advisory Firm recognized by major corporates and private equity investors in the technology and consulting space.
PCB CORPORATE FINANCE APPOINTS BRETT NEWLAND AS MANAGING PARTNER
NEWLAND TO LEAD PCB CORPORATE FINANCE’S CONTINUED EXPANSION INTO THE GLOBAL DIGITAL AND CONSULTING M&A ADVISORY SPACE
30 June 2021
The technology and consulting-led M&A advisory firm, PCB Corporate Finance, has today announced the appointment of Brett Newland as Managing Partner.
Before joining PCB Brett spent much of his career as a Managing Director in Accenture’s corporate development and M&A teams, supporting the firm’s largest and most complex transactions on both the buying and delivery side. His last role at Accenture was as Chief Operating Officer at their global security practice, where he ensured the operational efficiency of the business, managed key ecosystem relationships and supported major acquisitions into the global business. He joined PCB Partners in 2019 as Partner.
PCB is a leading mergers & acquisitions advisory firm, rooted in entrepreneurial culture. It provides buy-side and sell-side services, with a focus on disruptive technologies, digital transformation, management consulting and creative marketing services businesses. It was founded in 2018 by entrepreneur Ben Doltis and former LDC Managing Director, Tim Farazmand.
In just three years PCB has grown into an international advisory business that has worked at the highest levels within the digital and consulting sectors. The company has built a global team of 20 people, bolstering its business in the UK and adding new offices in the USA (NYC and Boston), Australia (Sydney) and India (Mumbai). In 2020, the firm also expanded its services from buyside M&A and now offers a range of corporate finance advisory services, growth advisory, fund raising and private equity coverage services.
Since joining the firm Brett has completed four transactions for consulting clients across the digital transformation market. This includes advising on the acquisition of a strategy consulting business in financial services, an AWS premier consulting partner, the UK’s leading data consultancy and a 350 FTE cyber security consulting firm – playing on Brett’s previous role as the Group COO for Accenture Security.
PCB Corporate Finance’s vision is to shake up the traditional investment banking industry, specifically in technology and consulting. To this end Ben Doltis and Tim Farazmand assembled a team of the best advisors from around the globe, including Peter Jacobs (former PwC Senior Partner Corporate Finance) Andrew Bloch (Founder of Frank PR), Ramone Param (ex- Equiteq Director, ex-PwC Global Corporate Development), Mark Casement (ex- PwC Corporate Finance), Animesh Parihar (ex-Head of Global Delivery at Finastra) in India, Matthew Melhuish (Founder of BMF and former Enero CEO) in Australia and Erez Benovich (ex-Managing Director of Experis Israel, a ManpowerGroup company) in Israel.
Commenting on his appointment Brett Newland said: “We’re building something very special at PCB Corporate Finance. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to lead a great team of people and help us reach the next stage in our development.”
PCB’s Founder Ben Doltis added: “Time and time again Brett has shown how valuable he is to the growth of PCB Corporate Finance. We’re already working with some of the world’s leading companies and I’m certain with Brett as Managing Partner we’ll soon be working with many more.”
It is always pleasing to receive testimonials from our Buy-Side clients, so we were delighted to receive this one from Reply.
Reply retained PCB Partners to help them find and acquire off-market consulting firms, to help them bolster their capabilities in their UK organisation.
It has been a pleasure supporting them on two acquisitions, that completed at the very end of 2020 – we look forward to continue working with them on their inorganic plans in 2021.
Read Full Article here
Matthew Melhuish, the former CEO of publicly listed marketing services company Enero, has joined PCB Partners in Australia as a Board Advisor.
The marketing industry veteran brings over three decades of experience working across the UK, Europe, US and Australia to the firm. At PCB Partners, he will focus on supporting the identification of targets, providing buy-side and sell-side advisory services, delivering transaction support and bringing together entrepreneurs and investors.
PCB Partners was founded in 2018 by Ben Doltis and Tim Farazmand, after they met during the process of Doltis selling his first consulting business. Farazmand was Managing Director at LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank – and although Doltis decided not to sell his firm in 2013 to LDC, the duo kept contact and teamed up to launch their M&A advisory. PCB Partners specialises in the technology and business services sectors, with a focus on the mid-market segment.
As an entrepreneur, Melhuish founded BMF, an Australian creative agency which grew to 250 employees. After selling BMF to Enero, he became CEO of the group. In the role, he led the firm’s buy-and-build strategy and more recently the successful turnaround of the services business.
Melhuish concluded his Enero role in this year, and also serves as a Board Director of coffee company Campos. He also acts as an independent consultant to various businesses in the football, footwear and private wealth management sectors.
Commenting on his role at PCB Partners, Melhuish said: PCB Partner’s entrepreneurial spirit and empathy for the entrepreneurial journey really sets them apart from others in this space. I’m excited to be joining them and look forward to bringing their very different approach to the Australian market.”
The appointment comes shortly after PCB Partners bolstered its team in India with Animesh Parihar, and in the UK with PwC veterans Julian Brown and Peter Jacobs.
Following on from the Royds Withy King webinar in which they spoke to Scott Moeller about tackling cognitive bias in M&A decision making – launching Headroom, our buy-side thought leadership series, with a joint White Paper with The Business School (formerly CASS), City, University of London and PCB Partners.
You can follow the link below to download now and learn about cognitive processes at play during various decision-making steps, and ways to de-bias the decisions that could have costly consequences:
Read Full Article here
PCB Partners has announced two appointments to further strengthen its team and international reach. Matthew Melhuish joins as a Board adviser in Australia and Animesh Parihar as a consultant.
Until recently Melhuish was CEO of Enero, a publicly listed marketing services company. Enero had previously acquired his business, BMF, as well as Frank – which was founded by fellow PCB advisor, Andrew Bloch. Parihar joins as a consultant and will help Indian pure play IT companies grow inorganically, both internationally and locally. He brings to PCB Partners over 40 years’ industry experience – most recently as Head of Global Delivery at the financial technology company, Finastra.
They follow the recent appointment of PwC veterans Julian Brown and Peter Jacobs, and Frank founder Andrew Bloch.
* Matthew Melhuish joins as a Board Advisor in Sydney, Australia to work with businesses looking for their eventual liquidity event.
* Animesh Parihar joins in Mumbai, India to help Indian pure play IT companies grow inorganically
*Follows recent appointment of PwC veterans Julian Brown and Peter Jacobs, together with Frank founder, Andrew Bloch
Fast-growing M&A advisory firm PCB Partners has today announced two heavyweight appointments to further strengthen its team and international reach. They follow the recent appointment of PwC veterans Julian Brown and Peter Jacobs, and Frank founder Andrew Bloch.
Matthew Melhuish joins as a Board Advisor in Australia. Until recently Matthew was CEO of Enero, a publicly listed marketing services company. Enero had previously acquired his business, BMF, as well as Frank – which was founded by fellow PCB advisor, Andrew Bloch.
Animesh Parihar joins as a Consultant and will help Indian pure play IT companies grow inorganically, both internationally and locally. He brings to PCB Partners over 40 years’ industry experience – most recently as Head of Global Delivery at the financial technology company, Finastra.
PCB Partners is a leading mergers & acquisitions advisory firm, rooted in entrepreneurial culture. They provide buy-side and sell-side services, with a focus on disruptive technologies, digital transformation, management consulting and creative marketing services businesses.
Matthew Melhuish has had a 35-year career in the marketing services sector – working across the UK, Europe, USA and Australia. As an entrepreneur he founded BMF, a market leading Australian creative agency which grew to 250 employees. He sold it to the Group in 2007. He then became Enero’s CEO and led the successful turn-around of this international group, including several crucial buy side transactions. He concluded his Enero role in March 2020.
Matthew says: “PCB Partner’s entrepreneurial spirit and empathy for the entrepreneurial journey really sets them apart from others in this space. I’m excited to be joining them and look forward to bringing their very different approach to the Australian market.”
Based in Mumbai, Animesh Parihar has spent the last four years as Head of Global Delivery for Finastra, which is one of the world’s largest fintechs and works with over 9,000 customers, including 90 of the top 100 banks globally. Prior to that he has had senior positions at a number of global companies, including SAP, Oracle and Capgemini.
Animesh says: “In the last two decades the Indian IT sector has seen exceptional growth and these organisations have touched on almost every industry. But in the last couple of years it’s become abundantly clear that organic growth won’t be good enough – and that inorganic growth is the only way forward.
“I’m delighted to be joining PCB. It’s an incredible opportunity to really help Indian pure play IT companies grow inorganically, both internationally and locally.”
PCB Partners was founded in 2018 by Ben Doltis and Tim Farazmand, after they met during the process of Ben selling his first consulting business. Tim was Managing Director at LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank – and Ben founded the SJB Group, building it into the market-leading executive search firm in digital and management consulting. After considering selling to Tim and LDC, Ben sold it to ManpowerGroup in 2013.
Although Ben had decided not to sell his firm to LDC, Tim and Ben still subsequently got together to create a very different kind of M&A advisory firm, which stayed true to Ben’s entrepreneurial heritage, while at the same time understanding the very specific needs of multinational corporations.
Commenting on the appointments, Ben Doltis says: “Tim and I are delighted that Matthew and Animesh have joined the PCB Partners’ family, they bring invaluable new international perspectives, which will really help us grow in their respective regions. I’m really excited to be working with them and for the future of our firm.”
For further information please contact:
Cathal Morrow, Quingenti
Phone: +44 (0) 7785 598746
Email: Cathal@quingenti.com
Tim Farazmand, Chair and impact investor
Background
Tim has been involved in private equity investing since 1987 including significant time spent in 3i, RBS PE and LDC. For the last twenty years he has been involved increasingly in impact investing and currently chairs Palatine’s Impact fund.
Video length
10 minutes
Contact details
www.linkedin.com/in/timfarazmand/
www.palatinepe.com/our-funds/impact/
PR expert Andrew Bloch tells Candice Krieger how customers now judge brands on their values, what it’s like to work with Lord Sugar and why he is looking forward to what’s next.
As Lord Sugar’s adviser, Andrew Bloch is used to managing media requests, but the PR expert is now fielding a fair few of his own. Since stepping back in May from his day-to-day duties at Frank, the illustrious PR company he founded 20 years ago, Bloch’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
Bloch has built a reputation as one of the most respected industry leaders, having created effective communication campaigns for some of the world’s favourite brands including Coca-Cola, Disney, Compare the Market, Deliveroo and Burger King. And the former Haberdashers’ Aske’s pupil has become renowned for representing Lord Sugar (more on this later).
Bloch, who was named as one of Britain’s most influential entrepreneurs in 2019, alongside Richard Branson, JK Rowling and his client, Lord Sugar, is now exploring new opportunities as well as continuing to work with Lord Sugar and his associated companies. He has recently taken on advisory board positions for Israeli PR tech company, Propel, M&A advisory firm PCB Partners, and Big Community Records, the record label founded by Google COO, Craig Fenton.
Bloch has also joined The Prince’s Trust as a business mentor. He remains a non-executive director and shareholder at Frank, and will consult brands and other agencies in the creative and marketing services space at a time when Bloch says it’s more important than ever for brands to get it right if they want to survive. “It’s not just about ‘talking the talk’, but ‘walking the talk’.
“It’s a skill of a good PR to be in tune with the zeitgeist but now, more so than ever, you need to get it right because if you get it wrong, there will be a backlash – there’s a real shortage of tolerance and you don’t want to be making mistakes.
“Leading up towards this pandemic, there had been a huge groundswell in the importance of authenticity and values,” says Bloch. “Customers are judging brands and corporations, their integrity and authenticity. Covid has put them in the spotlight and we have seen those that have gone above and beyond in terms of their duties.”
“It’s a skill of a good PR to be in tune with the zeitgeist but now, more so than ever, you need to get it right because if you get it wrong, there will be a backlash – there’s a real shortage of tolerance and you don’t want to be making mistakes”
He credits LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, and used its factories to make hand sanitisers, and Dyson, which offered to help manufacture ventilators, as well as those that turned their attention to feeding the NHS.
But Bloch acknowledges that what worked a week ago won’t necessarily be successful next week. “The real skill is selling messages that resonate with how people are feeling in this moment.
“And saying nothing is even worse – you don’t want to be silent. You go dark. Even if to communicate that you’re not doing very much, it’s important to keep talking and have a public face.”
“Even if to communicate that you’re not doing very much, it’s important to keep talking and have a public face”
Part of Bloch’s job is to give clients the confidence that what they are doing is right. He has spent more than two decades doing it. Starting out at Lynne Franks PR, Bloch co-founded Frank in 2000 with the former MD of the agency, Graham Goodkind. Three months in they got the chance to pitch for Amstrad.
“We lost the pitch. We knew this was a big opportunity for us, and we weren’t prepared to let it pass us by, so we literally begged for the chance to work on their business. I think they felt sorry for us. They reversed their decision and awarded us the account.”
This was the start of his 20-year relationship with Lord Sugar. He recalls: “I didn’t have too much to do with him initially. Our relationship built slowly when I would meet him at product launches and events. When you work with someone personally, it’s a relationship that is built on trust and you get used to each other’s styles.”
What’s Lord Sugar like to work with? “Great. When you watch him on The Apprentice, it’s a bit of a caricature. You don’t see some of his other traits: such as how sharp he is as a business person, his work ethic, his loyalty to his staff and his family side – he’s such a role model in terms of being a strong family man with great values and principles. You probably also don’t see his sense of humour in the same way. He is very funny and entertaining. And, of course, you don’t see all the s*** that goes on behind the scenes when you’re having to deal with aggressive media or other obstacles.
“I’ve learnt a lot from him. And when I stepped back from Frank, he was one of the clients I didn’t want to leave behind.”
When it comes to stand-out moments, Bloch says they are “for the wrong reasons in that they’re the headaches”. explaining: “When he was announced as Enterprise Tsar and made a lord, the media went to town saying there was a conflict between that and his role on The Apprentice and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such intense media attack. We went into battle on that one. I don’t think either of us will ever forget it. But there have also been some lovely moments.”
“I’ve learnt a lot from him. And when I stepped back from Frank, he was one of the clients I didn’t want to leave behind.”
Bloch was invited to the House of Lords for the ennoblement ceremony and was a guest at Lord Sugar and Lady Ann’s 40th wedding anniversary party. “And I’ve been lucky enough to have lunch on his boat.”
Worth £1.21 billion according to The Sunday Times Rich List, Lord Sugar doesn’t need to work.
“He works because he loves it and helping people develop their businesses,” says Bloch. “He’s also been a role model to me in terms of how to balance your life – he has an incredible life with homes in different places, and planes and boats and he manages to enjoy it all, yet I know that if I send an email he will be the first one to respond.
“He’s also been a role model to me in terms of how to balance your life – he has an incredible life with homes in different places, and planes and boats and he manages to enjoy it all, yet I know that if I send an email he will be the first one to respond.”
“It shows that he can enjoy the trappings of success and a brilliant career while still carrying on working.”
Scheduled filming of the 16th Apprentice series has been postponed until next year. In the meantime, Bloch is “taking a leaf out of Lord Sugar’s book” and enjoying his new chapter.
“I don’t know who’s going to phone me next and the diversity of it has been so interesting. Running Frank was relentless and I want to have a bit more of a work-life balance.”