• Chandler’s specialist areas include payments, mortgages and the debt sector Appointment marks a period of strong growth for Cavendish 

Cavendish Corporate Finance, the UK’s leading specialist sell-side M&A firm, announces the appointment of Duncan Chandler, as a Partner to head its Financial Services team. He will also be head of Financial Services at Oaklins, the world’s most experienced mid-market M&A advisory group, of which Cavendish is a member. The appointment will further enhance Cavendish’s advisory service on a sector-led basis and take advantage of growing opportunities in today’s vibrant M&A market.

Prior to joining Cavendish, Duncan Chandler was a Managing Director at the fintech-oriented VC fund, Blenheim Chalcot.

His previous experience includes five years at Deloitte Corporate Finance, where he was a Director in the firm’s Financial Institutions Group. His primary responsibility was leading banking coverage and overseeing the significant expansion and growth of the team. Before Deloitte, Duncan worked at NM Rothschild, where he was a Director in the Financial Institutions Group and oversaw transactions in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Duncan has experience of working across a great variety of corporate and financial sectors, most notably the payment, mortgage and debt sectors.

His transactions in the payments sector include the sale of the retail FX business, ICE, to HNA Group and Payments Card Technologies (PCT) to a family office, all of which build on Cavendish’s expertise in the sector, with the firm having advised on the sale of a range of major payments/foreign exchange providers, including the sale of World First to FTV Capital and the sale of the NZ operations of Change Group to Fexco.

Duncan also has a wealth of experience in mortgage-related transactions, including the separate sales of HML to Computershare and Vertex to Capita, two leading independent mortgage service providers. He has also worked for a substantial number of banks and building societies, including Nationwide and Skipton, as well on various NPL portfolio transactions.

In the debt sector, Duncan’s expertise marries well with Cavendish’s track record of advising on a number of debt and alternative lending businesses, including on the sale of West One Loan Limited to Enterprise Finance, and Freedom Finance Holdings Limited to SOF Investments.

He holds a Masters in Finance from London Business School and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in French and History from The Queen’s College, University of Oxford.

Cavendish has had a robust start to 2018, having advised on a number of high profile deals. These include the sales of OKA, a leading London-based furniture company to Investindustrial, a European investment fund and Alston Elliot, a leading provider of television sports graphics and data solutions, to Inflexion Private Equity. Cavendish also advised on the sale of OneStep Solutions, the specialist enforcement and debt collection software provider, to Civica Group, and Office Concierge, a reception management provider, to Armonia, a French corporate reception services provider.

 Lord Leigh of Hurley, Senior Partner at Cavendish Corporate Finance, commented:

“We are delighted to welcome Duncan to our growing and well-resourced M&A team. He brings an unrivalled breadth and depth of expertise in the financial services industry and will help ensure that we are well placed to offer the best possible advice to our clients. We believe that London will retain its pre-eminent position as the world’s leading financial services centre and accordingly this is an excellent time to expand in this sector.”

 Duncan Chandler, Head of Financial Services at Cavendish and Global Head of Oaklins’ Financial Services Group, commented:

“I am very pleased to be joining Cavendish’s excellent Financial Services team. The firm has a strong track record of advising on a broad range of financial services transactions, helping clients to optimise deal structures and navigate regulatory hurdles to help ensure they are completed successfully. Financial services is a key part of the UK economy and M&A in the sector has been particularly buoyant, so we will continue to work on behalf of our financial services clients to secure for them the best price on sale.”