The Fund Finance Association’s 5th Annual European Fund Finance Symposium wrapped up yesterday. Well over 500 people attended, including representatives from 50 different banks. We cover the key themes.
The FFA European Symposium wrapped up yesterday afternoon with presentations by Chris Elvin, Head of Private Equity at Preqin, and Tim Hames, Director General of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.
This week we interview Gavin Rees, who leads Silicon Valley Bank’s Global Funds Banking Team in London. The team serves private equity and venture capital funds with banking services and customised financing. Gavin has more than 25 years of specialist banking experience, of which 15 years have been focused on funds finance and seven years in structured finance. Gavin joined Silicon Valley Bank from Barclays, where he led the European private equity funds team. Before that, Gavin was a founder member of WestLB’s Funds Finance Group in New York.
The Fund Finance Association’s Next Generation initiative held a fun speed mentoring event in London earlier this week to kick off the European Symposium slate of events.
National Australia Bank is looking to hire an Associate Director or Senior Associate; Société Générale seeks to make an addition in the bank’s subscription finance practice.
After several relatively quiet weeks in fund finance, this week was anything but. Perhaps in anticipation of next week’s European Symposium, press reports addressing aspects of fund finance seemed to pop up daily. And the markets were very active—a number of deals that had been on a slow burn moved to mandate this week. The headline press came from private equity data provider Preqin.
The Cayman Islands office of Conyers Dill & Pearman this week published a Fund Finance thought leadership piece titled “The New Cayman Regulatory Landscape – What Questions Should a Lender Ask?”