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08:30
Registration and breakfast
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09:00
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09:10
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09:45
Panel: Value drivers for M&A
This panel would include deal origination leaders across sectors. Panellists will discuss value drivers for M&A in the current uncertain, European market. How are corporate strategies affected by geopolitics today? And what is the impact of uncertainty on M&A?
- How are deals teams sourcing and originating deals in a market of fewer, larger-ticket deals? And how can the firms best navigate increased competition?
- What financing opportunities are there for these assets given the increased competition?
- Which key value drivers are dealmakers paying particular attention to? How do deal teams evaluate value successfully?
- How is the low growth and highly regulated environment affecting cross-border activity? How can dealmakers overcome ‘slowbalisation’?
- What are the risks that merger arbitrage funds are looking at to indicate whether a deal might fail?
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10:20
Roundtable: Tech innovation in the M&A deal process
Big data, analytics and AI have the potential to transform the effectiveness of corporate development teams, but are yet to reach their full potential particularly in M&A.
- Can AI uncover hidden deals opportunities?
- How are companies using new technologies to shape due diligence procedures?
- Has GDPR affected the way development teams use Big Data?
- How has new technology affected work forces? And has this resulted in a change in culture?
- How are companies using social listening and sentiment analysis to measure performance?
- How can firms access financing via new technology such as enabler platforms and easier connectivity?
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10:55
Networking break
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11:10
Presentation: The changing political landscape in Europe and its implication for business
Business concerns about political and policy uncertainty have intensified in the face of rising political polarization, the increase in populism and the growing number of uncertainty-increasing events such as the Brexit vote. Contrary to popular belief, the rise in support for populist parties is not coming out of nowhere but revolves around deep-rooted socioeconomic and cultural shifts. Political fragmentation is the core dynamic of this process, one that often gets overlooked in the current debate. This process affects businesses in at least two ways. First, forming governments is becoming an arduous task, fostering policy uncertainty and paralysis. Second, populists do not need to win elections to influence policy. They have powerful indirect effects by moving mainstream parties closer to protectionist economic policies including scepticism towards trade and globalization more generally.
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11:25
European Deal Study
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12:00
Panel: Deal terms update - navigating regulatory change
Panellists will discuss updates to regulation leading to change in due diligence procedures for corporate development teams and how teams can update deal terms to mitigate risk of deal failure.
- How is the low growth and highly regulated environment affecting cross-border activity?
- How are increased FDI screening laws affecting cross-border activity? What can be defined as ‘critical sectors’? Is increased populism across Europe proliferating this trend?
- What will antitrust regulation look like post-Brexit? What will the CMA and European Commission’s relationship be going forward?
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12:35
Fireside Chat: Invasion of the American activists
This panel will explore current trends in European shareholder activism as well as the rise of US activists pursuing UK companies.
- What is driving the rise in European shareholder activism? What is attracting US activists to the UK market?
- What are the trends in key board changes that activists are seeking?
- Which successful tactics are activists utilising in their pursuit of board change?
- How can companies employ effective PR strategies to manage the potential reputational damage of activism campaigns?
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13:10
Networking lunch
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14:10
Panel: Divestment and consolidation strategies
This panel will review current trends in spin-offs across Europe. Panellists will discuss:
- How is corporate strategy driving divestments and carve-outs? Is activism a trigger?
- When is the best time to divest? And how does this play into consolidation strategies?
- Best practices for divestments and streamlining a portfolio: what are the best ways to leverage your IP and royalties stream? And what are the tax implications of this?
- What happens to a team in the initial aftermath of a divestment?
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14:45
Roundtable: Optimising accelerators and incubators
Changing values amongst consumers and workforces alike are increasingly showing that industry outsiders can help corporate teams to develop innovation.
- What types of problems can corporate teams seek to resolve by investing in accelerators?
- What are the benefits and disadvantages of this strategy instead of M&A?
- Once an accelerator has reached maturity, how can this be integrated into the wider company?
- How can corporate teams retain talent after the incubation period?
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15:20
Chair's closing remarks
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15:30
Networking drinks
Lucinda Guthrie
Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Equities and Transactions
Acuris
Lucinda has been in business journalism for over ten years. Lucinda has experience reporting on markets in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Prior to this post, Lucinda was deputy editor for Dealreporter Asia based in the Hong Kong office and reported on corporate events in Japan and Australia. She also headed up Dealreporter's convertible bond coverage in Europe and Asia. Lucinda's team provides intelligence for the equity and fixed income markets that is tailored to hedge funds, proprietary trading desks, security lending, ECM syndicate desks and institutional fund managers.
Matthew Ellis
Founding Member
Robey Warshaw
Matthew is a founding member of Robey Warshaw, a leading financial advisory firm. In recent years, Matthew has worked on some of the most high profile merger and acquisitions in the UK, including AstraZeneca / Pfizer, Sky / Comcast and BG / Shell, and was listed by Financial News in their “40 under 40 rising stars” list in 2014. Before that, Matthew spent a number of years at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Matthew joined the Board of Trustees in July 2016.
Pawel Pudlowski
Vice President M&A
Bauer Media Group
As Vice President M&A, Pawel Pudlowski leads the operative mergers and acquisitions business of Bauer Media Group. In this role, the experienced Financial Director supports the Executive Board and subsidiaries in managing M&A processes, from deal sourcing through to final closings and exits. Prior to his current role, Pawel worked for internationally successful companies such as Wolters Kluwer, Sanoma or C.H.Beck, while being located in Warsaw, Amsterdam and Moscow. Pawel speaks Polish, English and Russian fluently.
Alessandra Castelli
EMEA Public Markets Editor
Acuris
Alessandra leads the European operation of Dealreporter. She has been in financial journalism for over 10 years having covered large scale of M&A deals across different sectors and regions.
Prior to this post, Alessandra was deputy editor for Dealreporter Europe and Head of Italian coverage where she coordinated all coverage on the market.
Alessandra's team provides intelligence for the equity and fixed income markets that is tailored to hedge funds, proprietary trading desks, security lending, ECM syndicate desks and institutional fund managers.
Wolfango Piccoli
Co-President
Teneo Intelligence
Dr. Wolfango Piccoli is Co-President of Teneo Intelligence. Based in London, he serves as Director of Research and leads the firm’s coverage of Europe
Prior to joining Teneo, Piccoli was the director of the London office and head of the Europe practice at Eurasia Group, where he was responsible for advising financial, corporate and government clients on political developments in Europe.
Piccoli is a frequent commentator on European politics in major media outlets, including the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, CNN International, CNBC, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC Europe and Al-Jazeera English.
He also co-authored the book Turkey at the Crossroads: Ottoman Legacies and a Greater Middle East, which was translated into Turkish.
Piccoli holds a Ph.D. in International Politics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Bilkent (Ankara). He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Bologna.
Francesca Micheletti
Head of EU Merger Control Coverage
PaRR
Francesca heads merger control coverage for Mergermarket publications Policy and Regulatory Report (PaRR) and Dealreporter out of the Brussels bureau.
In her role she coordinates coverage and reports on regulatory risk associated to major global M&A. She also reports on other EU and national competition law and policy developments.
Francesca has 12 years' experience in media from both the journalism and public relations side, gained in Milan and Brussels.
A graduate of the College of Europe, she has an in-depth knowledge of EU affairs, from both an academic and practical day-to-day perspective.
Liad Meidar
Founder and Managing Partner
Gatemore Capital
Liad Meidar oversees all aspects of portfolio management including our direct investments.
Prior to founding Gatemore in 2005, Liad had a background in both finance and operations, including running a Seattle-based technology company incubator. Liad began his career in New York in leveraged finance at BT Alex Brown, the investment banking division of Bankers Trust (Deutsche Bank).
Liad has extensive experience as a board member of companies undergoing turnarounds, including Jazz Technologies, a publicly-traded semiconductor wafer foundry based in Newport, California, and MAG Industrial Automation Systems, a privately-held global machine tool builder with dual headquarters in Michigan, USA and Germany.
Liad is Chairman of GSE Worldwide, Inc, a fully integrated talent and sports marketing agency which is a Gatemore Partners LP portfolio company. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council at Princeton University and on the Board of Trustees of the American School in London. He received an AB in economics from Princeton University.
William Mace
Senior Reporter
Activistmonitor - Acuris Group
William spent five years reporting for the business pages of New Zealand’s largest publisher, Fairfax Media, covering everything from High Court fraud cases to M&A situations. Joining Dealreporter in London in 2014, William covered M&A transactions in sectors as diverse as oil & gas, chemicals, gambling, real estate, pub companies, aviation and transportation before taking a lead role in establishing Activistmonitor as an authority on the growing prevalence of shareholder activism in Europe.
Tristan Nagler
Managing Director
Aurelius Invest
Tristan Nagler joined Aurelius in January 2014 as Managing Director of the firm’s London office and is responsible for sourcing, identifying and executing equity investments across the UK and Ireland.
Tristan started his career with KPMG where he held a variety of roles including the position of Director in the London-based M&A team. In 2010 he joined Investec as a senior banker in the firm’s Growth & Acquisition Finance department, originating and executing a number of UK mid-market debt facilities including company refinances, MBOs and acquisition finance transactions.
Tristan is a Chartered Accountant and holds an MBA in Business Administration from École des Ponts Business School as well as a BA in History from the University of Leeds.
Rishi Chowdhury
Founder
Incubus London
Rishi Chowdhury is a founder of Momentum Startups which works to close the gap and accelerate innovation between B2B startups and corporates. He is also the founder of IncuBus Ventures which ran numerous incubator and accelerator programme including a number of corporate backed programmes between 2014-2018. Currently he is leading IncuBus Ventures, Incube project, which create smart offices for corporates designed to better enable co creation between employees, startups, clients and partners. The most recent completed project was Bosch's 12,000 sq ft, mobility focused, co creation space called the London Connectory. The office is based on Old Street roundabout and TfL are one of the launch partners. Outside of this, Rishi also works in a number of emerging markets across the world to support the development and competitiveness of their local startup ecosystems.
Joanne Czekalowska
Director, Europe Acquisitions Integration
IBM
Joanne has over 15 years of experience in post merger integration, as both a Senior Associate for PwC and latterly leading the Acquisition Integration team in Europe for IBM.
Since joining IBM, Joanne has led the integration of over 90 software and services businesses in Europe. Starting at due diligence, she focuses on developing and implementing plans to grow sustainable revenue and integrate all the business operations.
Deal experience includes acquisitions ranging in size from small single country to larger multi nationals (over 1000 people across 14 countries), usually integrating 10+ businesses in parallel at any one time.
Joanne graduated from De Montfort University, UK and is also ACMA.