New York-based Alvarez & Marsal (A&M), which entered the Australian professional services market last year, has recruited additional senior members to its local transaction services team and formally announced the start of the team’s operations.
David Willis, previously KPMG Australia’s head of private equity, and Steven Shirtliff, previously a senior partner with the firm, resigned early this year to join A&M. Willis is now head of the firm’s Australian transaction services team while Shirtliff is a senior transaction adviser.
The latest recruits to the team are also from KPMG, managing directors Doug Houston, and David Savage in Sydney and Mark Schiavello in Melbourne.
Together, the members of the team have wide experience advising on the buy and sell sides of transactions ranging across platform acquisitions, bolt-ons, carveouts and mergers, initial public offerings and capital raisings. Industry experience spans multiple sectors from healthcare to industrial services.
Global transactional services practice leader Paul Aversano said the high level the key differentiator that enabled A&M to compete successfully against the big four professional services firms was that it did not have to quarantine part of its knowledge base as it did not provide audit services. At the client level, the firm differentiated itself by offering operationally-focused advice, a legacy of its origins in restructuring and crisis management. This was enhanced by recruiting a large proportion of consultants who had corporate operational experience.
Aversano said it was an exciting time to be entering the Australian market because Australia was one of the largest new markets the firm had entered and one where the domination of the big four was unusually high. He had been surprised to discover that in Australia there were few professional services firms outside the big four that offered specialist private equity and M&A accounting and tax advisory services.
Willis said clients in Australia and New Zealand, and around the world, required advisors with a broad range of transaction and sector experience. A&M’s Australian transactional services team offered that and would be able to maximise value to clients by harnessing the experience, expertise and sector knowledge of the global A&M team.
Recruitment for the team was continuing at all levels, he added.
Doug Houston’s recent assignments with KPMG included advising Pemba Capital, Next Capital, Roc Partners, Crescent Capital, Mercury Capital, KKR, Affinity Equity Partners, Quadrant Private Equity and Adamantem Capital. Deals he worked on recently include Affinity Equity Partners’ exit of its stake in the Velocity Frequent Flyer program to Virgin Australia; financial due diligence for KKR on its $2 billion acquisition and take private of MYOB; and due diligence for Macquarie Asset Management on its $2.6 billion acquisition and take private of Bingo Industries.
David Savage’s recent assignments with KPMG included Potentia Capital’s acquisition of Nitro Software; Pacific Equity Partners’ acquisition of healthcare software business Genie Solutions; and Navis Capital’s investment in Software Combined.
Prior to leaving KPMG, Mark Schiavello played an important role in establishing the firm’s mid-market transactional services practice in Australia. Schiavello has solid corporate experience having spent six years with Tabcorp where he was involved in transactions including the company’s $11 billion merger with Tatts Group.
Image: Head of Alvarez and Marsal’s Australian transaction services team, David Willis.