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*Former President of PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance LLC in the US, Julian Brown, joins as Managing Partner*
*Former PwC Corporate Finance Partner, Peter Jacobs, joins as Chairman*
*Frank founder, Andrew Bloch, joins as Board Advisor*
Fast-growing M&A advisory firm PCB Partners has today announced the appointment of three industry heavyweights to further strengthen its team. They are PwC veterans Julian Brown and Peter Jacobs, who will spearhead PCB’s investment into corporate finance, and Frank founder Andrew Bloch, who will help pivot PCB buy-side clients into the world of digital and creative marketing services agencies.
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.
The firm 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.
Julian Brown joins as Managing Partner. As a Corporate Finance partner at Arthur Andersen, Deloitte and latterly PwC, he has 30 years’ experience advising public and private clients on domestic and cross-border mergers & acquisitions, capital raising, and divestitures.
During his career, Julian has been based in London, Madrid, Toronto and, most recently, New York, where as President of PwC’s US Corporate Finance business he led a team of more than 200 investment banking professionals across North and South America.
Julian Brown says: “I was attracted by the opportunity to work with partners from such a wealth of different backgrounds, all with a real entrepreneurial approach. After close to 30 years learning the M&A trade, then building businesses based pretty strongly around a single skillset, PCB Partners struck me as a differentiated model that would resonate far more strongly with clients. Its DNA provides us with instant credibility across the client spectrum from founder-run to large multinational businesses and, frankly, keeps things interesting for me after so long in the business.”
Peter Jacobs joins as Chairman. Peter had a 35-year career at PwC where, as a senior partner, he established and led its UK and European Private Equity M&A Advisory business. Peter has advised numerous companies and management teams on acquisitions, disposals, fundraisings and management buyouts.
Peter Jacobs says: “I’ve had a number of approaches from other M&A advisers, but saw little point in joining anyone with a me-too, undifferentiated offering. For me it was very much a case of ‘been there, done that’ so I concentrated on building a small portfolio of NED roles. When Ben and Tim first spoke to me about PCB Partners, I realised they had a far more interesting proposition in mind – an M&A business that truly understood and spoke the same language as its clients, and most importantly from an M&A perspective, one that had great people to work with and real reach and knowledge within its chosen market sectors.”
Andrew Bloch joins as Board Advisor. He is the founder of Frank, one of the UK’s most successful and established creative PR agencies. He set up Frank in 2000 and helped orchestrate the sale of the business to the Australian marketing services group, Enero, in 2007. Frank subsequently initiated another transaction post earn-out that saw a percentage of the agency returned to the management team.
Andrew is the official spokesperson for Lord Sugar and has acted for him since 2001. He is a founding mentor of the School of Communication Arts, a member of the Superbrands Council, and a business mentor to The Prince’s Trust.
Andrew Bloch says: “I’m delighted to be joining the advisory board of such a dynamic and fast-growing M&A business. PCB Partners has built an amazing team of individuals who are a breath of fresh air in the somewhat stuffy world of corporate finance. I’m looking forward to using my experience of having built an agency from scratch and selling it successfully to help broker similar deals for buy-side clients and agency owners. The interesting thing about the buy-side of M&A’s is that you can give access to companies that other M&A firms cannot, many of whose owners haven’t considered selling before. On the sell-side, I have first-hand experience of the importance of finding the right buyer. I’ve been through their journey and can help them make the right choices every step of the way.”
Commenting on the appointments, Ben Doltis says: “Julian, Peter and Andrew are great additions to the PCB Partners’ team. Tim and I are delighted they’ve come on board. Each brings unique skills and experience, which will really help us with all areas of our business. In Julian and Peter we have a couple of real industry heavyweights and in Andrew someone who is highly respected in marketing services and has been there, done it and worn the T-shirt. I’m really excited to be working with them and for the future of our firm.”
www.pcbpartners.co.uk
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