Lloyds rewards Brown for leveraged finance push

Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets has rewarded its head of European Origination, Ian Brown, for his efforts in building its underwriting business by promoting him to head of its acquisition finance division.

Brown has helped to support the bank's push into leveraged finance by increasing its support for larger private equity buyouts in Western Europe, a source close to the bank said. He has also helped to establish offices in continental Europe, in Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid and Amsterdam.

He will now be responsible for further developing the bank’s acquisition finance business in Europe and the UK, the bank said, helping to structure senior debt facilities and high yield bonds to fund private equity-backed buyouts.

Brown joined Lloyds in 2006 as a managing director after 13 years at UBS. Since then, he and the acquisition finance team at Lloyds have helped to structure financings for deals including BC Partners’ buyout of Phones4U and CVC Capital Partners’ acquisition of Raet, the bank said in a statement.

Brown commented: “While private equity activity in the UK and Europe has been stifled by macro-economic pressures during 2011, our highly skilled origination and structuring teams, relationship-based approach and focus on credit quality have allowed us to remain at the forefront of leveraged debt provision in the UK and on the continent.

“Despite continuing uncertainty surrounding syndication, pricing and the status of the high yield bond market, we are working on a number of opportunities for primary, secondary and tertiary buyouts in 2012,” he added.