One of the founders of the Dow Schofield Watts Corporate Finance arm has launched his own dealmaking boutique focussing on “underserved” smaller M&A deals.
Shaf Bheda, who co-founded the DSW partnership in Leicester two years ago, has now broken away to set up Greenoak Advisory, which will focus on transactions worth less than £10m.
“Greenoak Advisory is a new corporate finance boutique that will look to help an underserved market – deals that are worth less than £10m,” said Bheda, who has opened an office in Leicester. “Traditional advisory models are not built for this segment.
“A lot of deals involving smaller businesses – exits, acquisitions, buyouts – carry high execution risk. Yet they struggle to find a good adviser who is qualified, and end up going to a broker instead. As a result many of these deals fall over, drag on or don’t get the results that those involved wanted.”
Bheda said his departure from DSW is amicable and there will be little conflict because his former firm is focused on larger deals. DSW co-founder Harry Walker said Bheda went with “our best wishes” and he looked forward to being some of Greenoak’s biggest supporters.
Bheda has 15 years’ experience in M&A, and has completed transactions with a combined value of almost £500m. Before DSW he worked at accountancy firm Dains as head of corporate finance, and before that RSM.