March 2nd, 2020
We are delighted to announce that we have made two key additions to the bank’s capital structure and financing advisory practice substantially expanding the investment bank’s capabilities and coverage efforts.
Mofdi Gassoumi and Stanley Auvray have joined the bank respectively as Managing Director and Vice-President, in the Capital Structure & Financing Advisory Group specially created on this occasion.
The two professionals will strengthen the efforts already engaged by the bank’s three Founding Partners Olivier Barret, Pierre-Arnaud de Lacharrière and François Vigne, together with Alain Loeb who joined the bank as Partner in 2018.
Sycomore Corporate Finance, through the new team, will advise its clients on structuring their long-term capital and will assist them in implementing relevant financial solutions:
– the bank will advise its clients on achieving the right equity, debt and hybrid solution-based structure of their long-term capital, in line with their strategic challenges and the flexibility required to seize growth opportunity and absorb unforeseen shocks;
– it will provide groups, their management and their shareholders with valuable insight on the consequences of the relevant financing alternatives available – in particular the possible transfers of value across the different classes of stakeholders; it will advise them on the right investment story to build in order to achieve arbitrage opportunities identified on public or private segments of capital markets and will assist them in negotiating and implementing the new financings;
– the bank will continue to lead the lenders’ education processes as part of its M&A mandates;
– it will also assist its clients who may experience financial stress about to interfere with the conduct of their strategic plan in raising new money and negotiating consensual solutions about to restore a sustainable long-term capital structure.
The team has just achieved two significant transactions:
– Sycomore Corporate Finance acted as financial advisor to Groupe SAMSE and Dumont Investissement, the majority shareholder of Groupe SAMSE, a leading French building materials and construction equipment retailer, for the acquisition by Dumont Investissement of a 21.13% stake in Groupe SAMSE from BME France (former CRH France Distribution) for a consideration, excluding transaction related fees, of €136 million (corresponding to a price per share of the Company of ca. € 186). In this context, Sycomore Corporate Finance advised Dumont Investissement on structuring and raising the financing of the transaction with the historical pool of lenders;
– In December, the team achieved a landmark transaction on the French market with the first restructuring of Euro Private Placement resulting in a 50% debt reduction: Sycomore Corporate Finance advised Ymagis SA on its financial restructuring which was unanimously approved by its bondholders and lending banks. The press release is available here.
Mofdi Gassoumi joins Sycomore Corporate Finance from Degroof Petercam Investment Banking where he had been heading the Special Situation practice since 2012 and actively developing Capital Structure Advisory and Capital Market activities. Mofdi was previously Vice-President at Houlihan Lokey in Paris and in London where he was involved in financial advisory and financial restructuring engagements. Mofdi holds a master’s degree in finance from HEC Paris.
Stanley Auvray previously worked for Société Générale for seven years where he acted as Vice-President in the Leveraged & Acquisition Finance team of the bank, specialized in Telecom, Medias and Technology. Prior to that, he was part of the Trade Receivables Securitization team. Stanley holds an engineering degree from Telecom Paris and a Master of Science from Columbia University.
The recruitment of the two professionals follows the arrival of Alain Loeb in 2018 as Partner in charge of financing advisory. Alain Loeb had previously spent 16 years at Kiloutou Group where he was Executive Vice-President in charge of finance, including the asset and acquisition financing of the group as well as the financing of its three LBOs.