CVC strengthens FIG team with senior advisors

CVC Capital Partners has hired Robert Jenkins and Jim Sutcliffe as senior advisors to its financial institutions advisory board.

Jenkins is currently the chief executive and managing partner of hedge fund Combinatorics Capital. He was previously chairman and chief executive of F&C Asset Management, before which he spent sixteen years at Citibank and five years at Credit Suisse. He has been chairman of the UK Investment Management Association since 2007 and also co-chairs the Chancellor’s High Level Group on the future direction of the UK’s asset management industry, CVC said in a statement.

Sutcliffe was most recently group CEO for insurance giant Old Mutual, before which he was deputy chairman of Liberty International. His 30-year insurance industry career also included positions at Prudential, including CEO of the UK arm.

CVC’s global financial institutions team is headed by 21-year CVC veteran Jonathan Feuer.

The team has not closed a financial services deal since its official formation last year, having had its £3 billion iShares deal fall through when parent Barclays later agreed to sell iShares’ parent unit, Barclays Global Investors, to BlackRock in a $13.5 billion transaction. Talks that began late last year with RBS for a controlling stake in its insurance businesses also fell apart when RBS later decided to retain the units.

The mega-firm said it has roughly €14 billion in dry powder, “making the firm one of the top five sources of available private equity funds in the world”.

It is currently investing its fifth buyout fund, closed on €11 billion in January, as well as from the CVC Tandem Fund, a €4 billion co-investment fund originally raised to complement Fund IV. Its Asian affiliate, CVC Asia Pacific, closed its third fund on €2.6 billion in Spring 2008.

CVC is currently trying to purchase assets of UK-headquartered transport company National Express, which has twice rejected takeover bids from CVC and Spain’s Cosmen family. The consortium recently said, subject to due diligence, it would raise its offer to £765 million in a transaction that would also see it sell the company’s UK bus and rail divisions to UK bus company Stagecoach. The CVC consortium has until 25 September to make the offer.