Headpoint Advisors, a Midlands-based corporate finance advisory firm, has joined the Corporate Finance Faculty. It was founded in January 2019 by Mark Wilson, a former partner at Alantra (previously Catalyst Corporate Finance). Wilson was a Birmingham-based partner at Alantra/Catalyst for almost 15 years. He previously worked for Benelux- based private equity firm Greenfield Capital Partners and before that was an industrial engineer working for Siemens, UPS and TNT.

Leander Ots, who also worked at Alantra, is an associate at Headpoint. He was previously at the Dutch government's department of business. At Headpoint he is responsible for origination, research and transaction execution.

Wilson's wife Liza is marketing director at the new firm. She has 20 years’ business experience, having worked at Celerant Consulting, Dun & Bradstreet and Nyenrode Business School.

Andrew Garcia is special industry adviser and brings 25 years’ industry and M&A experience, with senior executive roles at Dragon Infrastructure Services, South Staffordshire Plc, Veolia Environmental Services (formerly Cleanaway), SIG Plc and Navigant Consulting. He was also an industrial services adviser to Alantra.

Headpoint operates nationally, with a strong Midlands focus, as well as across the south of England and Scotland.

Wilson said: “It's important for our nationwide network that we join the Corporate Finance Faculty. We value being able to access good up-to-date technical information for client projects and the faculty provides that. We also enjoy the opportunity to network with the broad range of faculty members, which is particularly important for a small, growing adviser like ourselves.”

He said that the firm is recruiting ‘traditional’ ACA-qualified corporate financiers. He also placed a lot of stock in ICAEW's Corporate Finance qualification, which he holds, and will be encouraging his staff to take the Diploma: “That's very important for attracting quality staff.”

Headpoint completed its first deal in November - acting for the shareholders of Jaffabox, a Birmingham-based, family-owned cardboard packaging manufacturer, on its sale to Schumacher Packaging GmbH, which is itself a family-owned business. “Given the uncertainty around Brexit among other things, the sale to a world-class German company demonstrates the underlying high-quality nature of the Jaffabox business as well as benefiting from strong trading through the entire deal process,” said Wilson. “Schumacher has grown very quickly and this represents its first major investment in the UK. We fully expect that more investment in the Midlands and the wider UK will follow