NOVENTUS PARTNERS - Key Persons
Christopher has had a career in telecommunications, technology, finance and law spanning more than 30 years, working in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
He recently stepped down as a senior finance partner in the London Office of Latham & Watkins, a global law firm.
Prior to that, he was an Executive Vice President of a pan-European data communications company with responsibilities including mergers and acquisitions, joint venture development, and capital markets issuances.
Christopher serves on the Boards of a number of companies in the technology sector, specialising in FinTech and HRTech.
He holds a BA from the University of Oxford and a Masters of Comparative Law from The George Washington University. Christopher is a qualified solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and is a member of the New York Bar.
Mitch has over thirty-five years of investment banking experience and has completed transactions involving all areas of mergers and acquisions, equity fund raisings, debt financing...
Mitch has over thirty-five years of investment banking experience and has completed transactions involving all areas of mergers and acquisitions, equity fund raisings, debt financing, balance sheet management and hedging, corporate restructurings, film financings and leveraged buyouts.
He began his career with Bankers Trust in the US and moved to London with them in 1983. There, he covered corporate clients across Europe in the debt and capital markets areas. Later, with NatWest Markets/Hawkpoint Partners, he was head of marketing for the Debt Structuring Group and a Director of Corporate Finance covering the Media and Technology sectors. He went on to be an original member of LongAcre Partners, the media and telecoms advisory boutique backed by the partners of the Olswang law firm and the Corsair Fund where he served as a Managing Director before he left to co-found Noventus in 2002.
He holds a BA from Columbia, a JD from NYU Law School and an MBA from Columbia Business School and is a member of the New York Bar.
Nicolas is a UK-based French national and has worked in investment banking and capital markets for the past twenty years. He focuses on advisory and financial structuring mandates for French small and mid cap corporates and private equity investors seeking cross-border expansion and opportunities in the UK.
He began his career at Bankers Trust structuring derivatives for a variety of private and public sector clients until moving to the High Yield team, covering private equity funds and investors. In 1998, he joined CIBC as Managing Director, where he originated and structured transactions for private equity investee companies as well as quoted corporates across Europe and North America. In 2003, Nicolas returned to Paris for two years as a Founder of Hermes Partners, an advisory firm targeting European mid-caps seeking strategic advice and financial structuring solutions. In 2005, he joined Natixis where he led the international expansion of the Private Equity Placement Team originating transactions from UK and Continental issuers and developing a distribution business in London for UK investors.
Nicolas graduated from l‘Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales ("HEC"), and has a BA in Philosophy from the Sorbonne.
Rodney Payne has been involved in media banking and finance for over thirty years. Having established Hill Samuel's Film and Television Finance Division where he created a variety of joint ventures with production and sales companies, he subsequently was recruited to establish the Coutts Media Banking Office for the NatWest Group. While at Coutts, he formed the International Film Finance Corporation (IFFC), a joint venture among NatWest and insurance companies Aon and CAN which employed actuarial methods to reduce risk in film finance projects. During that time, he also established Coutt's Beverly Hill's office specifically to serve the film and television industries.
In 1999, Rodney left the NatWest Group to form Media Capital Partners (MCP), which took on the business of IFFC. A US company with offices in London and Beverly Hills, MCP was conceived as a film finance company but soon developed into an international film distribution company and was renamed Cobalt Pictures. In 2003 Cobalt merged with the LSE listed Winchester Entertainment which, in turn, was acquired by ContentFilm where Rodney remained as a Director until 2004 when he returned to film finance as a director for various private equity sponsored investment funds.
Rodney was a UK government appointed Governor of the British Film Institute, serving for the maximum six-year period. He now chairs Rising Star Media in London and Merlina Entertainment in Los Angeles.
Rodney has been involved in media banking and finance for over thirty years.
Tom is a highly experienced corporate financier with over thirty years' experience spent advising small and mid-cap clients across a broad range of industry sectors.
Tom joined Noventus Partners in 2005. Prior to that, he spent fifteen years at Hawkpoint/NatWest Markets advising on and executing acquisitions, disposals, debt and equity fund-raisings, IPOs and public takeovers. During that time he was a key member of the Emerging Companies Team which focussed on providing the full spectrum of financial and strategic advice to fast-growing companies with ambitious management teams. He was also closely involved in a number of leveraged buyouts while helping build Hawkpoint's position as market leader in UK take-privates.
Tom is a PwC-trained Chartered Accountant and has spent a period in industry as the M&A and Strategy Director of a quoted company involved in building systems and construction software. He has an Engineering Degree from Oxford University.