AI Magazine April 2016

www.acquisition-intl.com • April 2016

The Rise of Online Dispute Resolution We speak to Alex Bargate about Ajuve, his new low cost online dispute resolution service that is designed to revolutionise the settlement of disputes. /22

CEO of the Year, New York We speak to Dr. David Gershon (left), CEO of SuperDerivatives, a global leader in cloud based market data, derivatives trading technology and analytics. /16

Spiders in the Web: The Risks of Online Crime to Legal Businesses

We catch up with Vince Warrington at Protective Intelligence, a company providing consultancy and training on Cyber Security and Data Protection. /24

Doing Business Overseas Landing Dione, GROUPE D’APPUI A LA PERFORMANCE SARL. /21

The Most Innovative UK Accountancy Firm 2016

We got in touch with Paul Waite, CEO of Aspen Waite, to learn more about their company and how they are committed to building their brand as the logical choice for SMEs. /60

Ones to Watch in IP, 2016 ELLA CHEONG is recognized as one of the best IP lawyers in Asia, and considered by many as a pioneer.

She is a solicitor in Hong Kong and our One to Watch in IP for 2016. /26

Executive Coaching – The Secret of Sustained Success

USA Industrial Deal of the Year

The Last Emerging Market

We spoke to Checkers Safety Group president, Ray Torres, to find out more about Checkers Industrial Safety Products Inc. Acquisition of Superior Manufacturing Group Inc. /12

We speak to Dr Phil Bardzil at Psychologica LTD about how executive coaching can help inspire leaders to transform themselves and their people to improve business results and performance, by developing skills, confidence and focus. /34

We talk to The Law Office of Gheidi & Associates, based in Tehran. /93

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Contents

Editor’s Comment Welcome to the April edition of edition of AI magazine. We begin this packed edition on a note of optimism, with news that 2015 was a fantastic year for Consulting Sector M&A deals.

According to Equiteq’s Global Consulting Mergers & Acquisitions Report 2016, deal activity in the sector grew by 9.4%, continuing an upward trend in deal activity and multiples.

A number of recent mergers and acquisitions are put under the spotlight, including CEO Connexity’s acquisition Hitwise, a division of Experian and Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH recently acquiring the office property Prime Corporate Center, in the city centre of Warsaw in Poland.

In a special feature, Head of Consulting at JLL reveals that real estate represents the second largest cost on a corporate balance sheet, but all too often it fails to be properly accounted for during mergers and acquisitions or is assessed only in the latter stages of negotiation.

In other news, Avondale was pleased to announce the sale of QVS on 12th April, the well-known electrical products supplier and online retailer to Ryness Electrical. And PRAXISIFM acquired a fiduciary and corporate governance consultancy to enhance its presence in Switzerland and expand its operational footprint in Africa.

This edition showcases a wide range of innovative and cutting-edge financial and law firms across the globe, from the UK, into Europe and countries such as Japan, China, Turkey, Canada and Iran in a mixture of feature articles and company listings.

In one in-depth article, SuperDerivatives’s Dr. David Gershon lifts the lid on the activities of this global company, including their large research and development (R&D) division that develops the company products for the full spectrum of professionals in the financial markets, including banks, corporations, hedge funds, asset managers, insurers, auditors, brokers.

In another illuminating feature, Ajuve, a highly innovative online dispute resolution service, reveal their new service, that targets the public’s many reservations about the legal industry, and is designed to revolutionise the settlement of disputes.

We engaged in a conversation with Alex Bargate, CEO and Co-founder of Ajuve, to find out more.

These are just a few examples of the wealth, depth and breadth of content we feature in this exciting edition and I hope that you enjoy reading the magazine.

Jonathan Miles, Editor Jonathan.Miles@ai-globalmedia.com No information contained on or in this website constitutes investment advice or an offer to invest or to provide management services and is subject to correction, completion and amendment without notice.

Neither AI nor any of its associated entities are authorised to give financial advice of any nature nor are they regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Prior to making any investment, AI recommends that any prospective investor should consult with its own investment, accounting, legal and tax advisers to evaluate independently the risks, consequences and suitability of that investment.

Revolutionising Resolution – The Rise of Online Dispute Resolution Ajuve is a highly innovative online dispute resolution service whose slogan is ‘Hate lawyers? Love Ajuve”. We engage in a conversation with Alex Bargate, CEO and Co-founder of Ajuve, to find out more. /22

4/ News from around the world 10/ Managing Director of the Month: Delivered Health Solutions Ltd 11/ Deal of the Month: Private Equity Partners 12/ USA Industrial Deal of the Year 14/ Sector Talk 16/ CEO of the Year, New York: SuperDerivatives 18/ CEO of the Year - Belgium: KOLLECTOR 21/ Doing Business Overseas 24/ Spiders in the Web: The Risks of Online Crime to Legal Businesses 26/ Ones to Watch in IP: ELLA CHEONG 28/ Africa on the Rise 30/ France: On the Rise 31/ Latin America Series: Guyana 32/ Best for Employment Visa Advice - Colorado 34/ Executive Coaching – the Secret of Sustained Success 36/ Best Asian Bond Fund: S.E.A Asian High Yield Bond 37/ Best for Litigation Support Services - France 39/ Best Independent Investment Management Firm - Canada 40/ Best Fund House - 2016 & Best Dynamic Asset Allocation/Volatility Fund (Since Inception): ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund (IPBAF) 42/ Civil Mediator of the Year - UK

How to get in touch AI welcomes news and views from its readers.

Correspondence should be sent to; Address/ Acquisition International, First Floor Suite F, The Maltsters, 1-2 Wetmore Road, Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, DE14 1LS. Tel/ +44 (0) 1283 712447 Email/ reception@acquisition-intl.com Website/ www.acquisition-intl.com

Find us on/

43/ Best for Accounting & Tax Disputes - Morocco 44/ Litigation Lawyer of the Year 2016 – Ireland 47/ Ones to Watch for 2016: The Best Boutique Law Firms 48/ Ones to Watch for 2016: The Best Fraud Investigation Firms 50/ Ones to Watch for 2016: The Leading Tax Experts: ARN HOXTON 52/ Ones to Watch for 2016: The Leading Tax Experts: Lui & Mak 53/ Ones to Watch in IP: Maxey Law Offices 54/ Ones to Watch in IP: Monard Law 55/ Most Innovative Tax Service Provider – UK 57/ Best Optical Industry Business Advisors - UK 58/ Most Innovative Business Leader - UK 60/ The Most Innovative UK Accountancy Firm 2016 62/ Most Innovative Law Firm - Mauritius 64/ Innovative Law Firm of 2016 - Canada 65/ Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016 - Italy 67/ Most Innovative Law Firm Germany 68/ Most Innovative Firm in Hungary 69/ Most Innovative Law Firms 2016 70/ Winners Directory 77/ Resolving Disputes Through Arbitration 78/ Leading Adviser in Nigeria 80/ 2016’s Leading Debt Advisory Firms 81/ First Quarter Update 82/ Advantages of Arbitration as a Method of Resolving Franchising Disputes 85/ Htin Kyaw - What Now? 86/ Property in the M&a Lifecycle: Get Your Strategy in Place 89/ Answering All the Right Questions for Distribution Network Optimization 90/ Why Connexity’s Acquisition of Hitwise Is The Future Of Data-Driven Marketing 93/ The Last Emerging Market Acquisition International - April 2016 3

News: from around the world

Deal Volumes in the Consulting Sector Reach near-peak Conditions 2015 was a fantastic year for Consulting Sector M&A deals. According to Equiteq’s Global Consulting Mergers & Acquisitions Report 2016, deal activity in the sector grew by 9.4%, continuing an upward trend in deal activity and multiples. Despite the current negative sentiment towards overall M&A activity in 2016, first quarter 2016 results show no slowdown in this growth trend in the Consulting sector.

This is a steady deal market, with an overall balance of consolidation and fragmentation occurring in different sub-segments. The consulting sector is also incredibly resilient to economic and market cycles, with a long term average of 150-200 deals per month and deal activity remaining above 100 deals per month during the last financial crisis.

In 2015, there were 2418 acquisitions in the global consulting sector, including management consulting, IT consulting and services, Media agencies, Engineering consulting and HR advisory firms. This growth follows a trend of steadily increasing deal activity in this sector since the financial crisis.

While global deal volumes in the sector returned to near-peak levels, deal value trends also hit a post-crisis peak in 2015, with global consulting transaction revenue multiples at the highest level since 2007! This highlights the very healthy

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transaction conditions currently in this sector, where buyer demand continues to outstrip supply, ultimately driving deal values higher.

Looking at international trends, 20% of total global consulting M&A were cross-border deals, with 84% of this international deal activity within developed western markets. North America accounts for approximately half of total global M&A activity, with one third in Europe (mainly UK) and Asia-Pacific at 13%, largely driven by Australian deals. 75% of deals done worldwide were completed by only 5 countries: US, UK, Australia, France and Canada. The key factors that continues to drive foreign acquisitions are buyers’ proximity to the culture, economics and politics of the target’s country.

In the consulting sector, we continue to see a large number of small value deals. In 2015, 83% of deal volume was below $100m with 70% under $40m,

although deal values range from under $5m to over $500m. On average, these consulting sector transactions involved deal structures with 60% paid upfront and 40% as an earn-out over two to three years.

“The key message for consulting firm sellers in 2016 is that now is the time to prepare your business for sale” said Paul Collins, Equiteq’s Founder and CEO. “Although market conditions are different now than the last peak in 2007 and there remains some cautious optimism among buyers about near term activity, these positive conditions are unlikely to continue for long at current near-peak levels. Sellers should take advantage of the demand in the market while it lasts.”

Equiteq’s Global Mergers and Acquisitions Report 2015 is available to download for free from http://www.equiteq.com/equiteq-edge/m-aintelligence/2016-ma-report-1/

News: from around the world

News: from around the world

Warburg-HIH Invest acquires landmark property in Warsaw - Office property Prime Corporate Center developed by Golub GetHouse in Warsaw’s city centre - Acquisition for the portfolio of a real estate fund managed on behalf of institutional investors - Occupied under a long-term lease by Raiffeisen Bank Polska as main tenant

Hamburg, 08 April 2016 – Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH (Warburg-HIH Invest) has acquired the office property Prime Corporate Center in the city centre of Warsaw. The transaction, which took the form of an asset deal, was carried out as a club deal for four separate accounts of German institutional investors. The property has been sold by the Warsawbased developer Golub GetHouse.

The recently completed office property has a total rentable space of almost 20,900 square metres split over 23 floors and five basements. 300 square metres on the ground floor are being used for catering purposes.

The property also has 197 parking spaces in the underground car park. The property is located centrally in the inner city of Warsaw in the upcoming district Wola in the immediate vicinity of the central business district and within easy walking distance of the central railway station.

The Prime Corporate Center is fully let. All office spaces are being occupied by Raiffeisen Bank Polska S.A. under a ten-year lease.

“The Prime Corporate Center’s prominent location in the growing metropolis of Warsaw, the excellent access to the public commuter railway system and last but not least the outstanding quality of the property makes this acquisition a highly attractive medium to long-term investment for Warburg-HIH Invest and its investors”, says Matthias Brodeßer, Head of Transaction Management International at Warburg-HIH invest and responsible for the International Purchase and Sale.

“We are very proud of the building we delivered and its highest quality proved by the fact that Raiffeisen Bank decided to select it for its new Polish headquarters. The credibility of such a trustworthy tenant and the 10-year-long lease, as well as the

quality of development are reflected in its high market value. Institutional investors engaged in Prime Corporate Center, through a fund managed by Golub GetHouse, also included Polish Open Pension Funds (OFE). This transaction confirms that Polish capital works very well on the real estate market in Poland, which can provide extraordinary returns for developers and investors. I am glad the building we developed has attracted Warburg-HIH Invest and I am certain that Prime Corporate Center will be a very valuable asset in their portfolio” – said Czarek Jarzabek, Founder and President of Golub GetHouse.

The buyer has been advised by Hogan Lovells (legal), TPA Horwath (tax), cmT (technical acquisition due diligence) as well as Cushman & Wakefield and MF Capital (investment advisers).

The seller has been advised by Clifford Chance (legal) and Savills (investment adviser).

The general contractor, the company Warbud, completed the building on schedule in March 2016 after only two years of construction. The Prime Corporate Center was designed by the Chicagobased architecture firm of Solomon Cordwell Buenz in cooperation with Epstein, Warsaw. The building is certified as BREEAM Very Good

Praxisifm Acquisition Will Enable Further Growth PRAXISIFM in April 2016 acquired a fiduciary and corporate governance consultancy to enhance its presence in Switzerland and expand its operational footprint in Africa.

The group, which last year made three acquisitions, has now acquired Ampersand Management which has operations in Geneva and Mauritius and employs nine staff. Ampersand was established by Martyn Crespel and Jean-Paul Le Cocq who are both from Jersey.

‘Ampersand’s services are complementary to PraxisIFM’s offering. They offer a common sense approach to corporate governance advisory services especially to Middle East family offices and they have built up significant experience working with families in the Gulf who have Sharia requirements but are also truly international,” said Brian Morris, chairman of PraxisIFM. Mr Morris said PraxisIFM was committed to increasing its presence in Switzerland and growing its operational footprint into other parts of Africa with the expansion of the group’s base in Mauritius.

“The acquisition of Ampersand fulfils both these aims. Martyn and Jean-Paul have extensive experience and that was a significant factor in our decision. They, and the rest of the team, will be instrumental in our plans to accelerate growth in these regions, organically and by further potential acquisitions.”

Mr Crespel said the team would continue to focus on delivering outstanding service to their existing clients but would now be able to offer an increased range of products, services and jurisdictions.

“PraxisIFM offered us a dynamic privately owned business that is well established and strategically located and we are delighted to be joining them and sharing our experience,” he said.

The acquisition means PraxisIFM, which is one of the largest independent and owner-managed financial services groups headquartered in the Channel Islands, has assets under administration in excess of $42 billion and revenues of over £28 million. The group has more than 250 staff across 10 jurisdictions.

Acquisition International - April 2016 5

News: from around the world

ICAP Acquires ENSO Financial Analytics ICAP plc (IAP.L), a leading markets operator and provider of post trade risk mitigation and information services, announced on 14th April that it has acquired ENSO Financial Analytics (ENSO), a leading provider of a data analytics platform for hedge funds and prime brokers.

The acquisition has been led by Euclid Opportunities, ICAP’s early-stage fintech investment incubator, founded by Steve Gibson in 2011. Euclid made its first investment in ENSO in June 2013, which was followed by a subsequent investment in October 2014 to enable further growth of the business.

ENSO will become a subsidiary of ICAP’s Post Trade Risk and Information (PTRI) division. ENSO founders Matthew Bernard, Michael Gentile, and Dwaine Alleyne will continue in their leadership positions with ENSO and will report to Jenny Knott, CEO PTRI. ENSO provides powerful portfolio analytics to the hedge fund and asset management industry. ENSO’s team of prime brokerage, asset management, technology and data specialists deliver identifiable and measurable operational insight on counterparty credit risk, collateral management, and portfolio financing and treasury functions. With more than $1 trillion in total assets under advisory, ENSO provides operational insights and key analytics to many of the world’s most successful fund managers.

Through Euclid Opportunities, ICAP has made a number of early-stage financial technology investments and continues to grow its portfolio,

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identifying emerging companies with new platforms, business models and technologies that have the potential to drive efficiency, transparency and scale across the post-transaction lifecycle.

Since launch, Euclid Opportunities has invested in: Duco, a now global provider of data control services; OpenGamma, an award winning risk analytics platform; AcadiaSoft, an industry collaboration to automate collateral management; Abide Financial, a market-leading global regulatory reporting specialist; and Digital Asset Holdings, a developer of Distributed Ledger Technology.

Michael Spencer, Group Chief Executive Officer, ICAP, said: “We have been and continue to be impressed by ENSO, who have demonstrated the ability to build a hedge fund client base to which they have delivered an expanding and well-regarded product set. The acquisition of ENSO demonstrates the Euclid model perfectly and follows an initial investment from ICAP in 2013. I welcome the ENSO team to the ICAP Group of companies. They will benefit from our networks, our years of experience and our expertise in the markets we serve. Together, we will have the opportunity to take the business to the next stage of its growth.”

Jenny Knott, Chief Executive Officer, Post Trade Risk and Information, commented: “Our clients are seeking solutions to the structural trends of regulation, electronification and standardisation that are driving change throughout the industry. We feel ENSO perfectly complements our existing post trade client offerings and we are very excited about the synergies and many opportunities we see to expand our products and analytics services to the hedge fund and the buy side community.”

Matthew Bernard, Co-Founder of ENSO, said: “In today’s rapidly changing financial and regulatory environment, the treasury and portfolio financing functions within a hedge fund become paramount roles. ICAP’s initial investments helped us expand in the US and UK, while continuing to invest in new product generation. Being part of the ICAP platform will propel our expansion and innovation strategy even further.”

Michael Gentile, Co-Founder of ENSO, added: “ICAP has supported ENSO from the beginning. They continue to encourage us to innovate and execute on products that deliver value to our clients and for the market. ICAP’s culture and vision are tremendously aligned with our own, and we look forward to the vast realm of possibilities that lie ahead.”

News: from around the world

News: from around the world

BUYITDIRECT Launches Specialist Drones Retailer DRONESDIRECT.CO.UK The BuyItDirect Group, one of the UK’s leading online appliances and electronics retailers, launched DronesDirect.co.uk in April, with the aim of becoming the UK’s largest drones retailer.

The news comes following the acquisition of drone business ProFlight-UK Ltd by the BuyItDirect Group, which also owns popular electronics retailing websites such as AppliancesDirect.co.uk and LaptopsDirect.co.uk.

As part of the acquisition, BuyItDirect has rebranded the company as DronesDirect.co.uk, whilst retaining the ProFlight-UK Ltd product branding, product lines and expertise.

The retailer sells a wide range of market-leading drones brands including DJI, Parrot, Yuneec, ProFlight and 3DR via the website.

ProFlight founder, Tim Morley, will continue to be heavily involved in the business and is now responsible for the website’s continued success and future development.

DronesDirect.co.uk currently have 50 drones listed on their website catering for a range of budget and pilot requirements, including sophisticated camera and racing drones, amongst other specialist models.

Nick Glynne, managing director at BuyItDirect Group, said: “We are delighted to have acquired ProFlightUK Ltd, which has great credentials within the drones and UAV market, bringing further gadget specialisms under the BuyItDirect umbrella.”

“This acquisition is key to the continued growth of BuyItDirect, and allows us to maintain our position within the electronics market. We anticipate drones will become a real growth market as they move from a hobbyist product to have a wider appeal - they are genuinely useful pieces of technology and have thousands upon thousands of possible applications.”

Tim Morley, said: “I am thrilled that BuyItDirect has acquired ProFlight-UK Ltd – Nick and the company have a genuine interest in the product category and are keen to develop our offering and bring it to a wider audience - and I know the Group’s vast experience and expertise in online retailing will allow us to secure future success. I very much look forward to DronesDirect.co.uk taking the category leadership spot.”

DronesDirect.co.uk is one of the UK’s leading drones, quadcopter and flying accessories retailers, based in Huddersfield. The full product range can be found at www.DronesDirect.co.uk

Eversheds acts for Primary Capital on their Investment in Maru Group and Double Acquisition Eversheds has acted for Primary Capital Partners LLP on their investment of £45million into MARU Group and its acquisition of eDigitalResearch, a market leading Voice of Customer business with its own proprietary technology infrastructure. The transaction included the carve-out of Vision Critical Research and Consulting, a customer intelligence professional services firm.

Maru Group’s vision is to grow clients’ business through a combination of expertise in insight community platforms and sector-specific research from North American based group Vision Critical Communications Inc. The Eversheds team, led by Head of Private Equity Richard Moulton, acted as lead counsel on the transaction, working alongside US law firm Foley & Lardner and Canadian law firm McMillan.

Supporting Richard from the corporate team was partner Louise Finnie, associates Emily Dupee, Alex McCarney, Lee Harris and trainees Rebecca Harris and Suzanna Skier.

Richard Moulton, commented: “We are very pleased to have been able to work alongside the Primary and Maru teams in implementing their international growth strategy for this exciting business. We look forward to working with the teams in progressing their strategy further in the future.”

Graham Heddle, Partner at Primary Capital added: “Eversheds provided excellent leadership and advice on a range of legal issues relating to both the acquisition of UK based eDR and the complex carve-out of VCRC in North America.”

“ProFlight’s proposition allows us to enter the market as DronesDirect.co.uk at an advanced stage, armed with a vast knowledge of the product category and an established customer base.”

“Whilst ProFlight-UK Ltd already has a customer base of drone racers, hobbyists, professional aerial photographers and cinematographers, BuyItDirect will help to bring the products to the attention to a wider audience.”

Acquisition International - April 2016 7

News: from around the world

Invoice Financing Provider Expands Asset Based Lending Facilities for UK SMEs Following Equity Commitment of £20m from Spring Ventures Spring Ventures, a private equity investor specialising in management buyouts of UK companies with strong growth potential, announced on 13th April that it has backed a group of experienced commercial lending professionals to buy invoice financing provider, IGF Invoice Finance Limited (“IGF”), from Greater London Enterprise(GLE).

Spring Ventures will initially invest £9m to fund the acquisition (buy-in management buyout) and provide growth capital. It will commit a further £11m of follow on capital over the next three years and will take a majority stake.

The management buyout team includes John Onslow, John Nelson and Jon Hughes who collectively have 60 years’ experience in the commercial lending sector. Matthew Cooper, cofounder of Capital One Bank and former NEC of AIM listed Inspired Capital, has also been appointed as Chairman.

New CEO John Onslow has previously grown and sold two asset based lending businesses including Centric Commercial Finance (sold to Shawbrook in 2014) and Heller Finance (acquired by GE in October 2003). John also served as Chairman of the Asset Based Finance Association.

John Onslow, new CEO of IGF

IGF will lend up to £5m to meet the growth aspirations and working capital needs of UK SMEs with revenues up to £100m. The facilities may also be used to support re-financings, mergers and acquisitions, management buy-outs and buy-ins, restructurings, and turnaround situations. IGF currently has a portfolio of c. 200 clients and a loan book of £20m; and supported small businesses with total sales volume of more than £300m in the year to March 2015.

Established in 1997, the company is headquartered in Tonbridge, Kent and currently employs 38 people.

Following the investment, the business will hire additional staff and expand its national presence across the UK. Matthew Cooper, new Chairman of IGF, said: “Against a backdrop of continued demand for SME funding, this is a very exciting opportunity to take a relatively small invoice lending platform and grow it into an asset based lending business of significant scale.

Aside from bank lending, there are still very limited credit facilities available for smaller businesses. Our model provides a solid way to deliver flexible forms of funding to SMEs and I have every confidence that we will increase the size of our loan book from £20m to £300m + in three years.”

John Onslow, new CEO of IGF, commented: “In Spring Ventures, we have found an investor that will give us the financial firepower to take IGF into exciting new areas as well as increase our national presence. The asset based lending market is growing fast. It is still dominated by the high street banks who would in general rather invest in larger, lower risk opportunities and this in turn offers enormous potential to smaller more flexible providers like IGF to fill a gap. With 5 million SMEs in the UK currently employing some 15 million people and accounting

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for 50% of the economy, there is a very significant funding gap to be filled.”

John Hudson, Managing Partner at Spring Ventures, who joins the IGF board added: “This deal gives us an attractive opportunity to back what we believe is the strongest team in the asset based lending sector.

Due to the complexity of the business, few operators have the credibility to provide a full range of asset based loans at this end of the market. The IGF team have proven experience of building successful lending businesses and we very much look forward to working with them to create a major new provider of asset based lending to SMEs.” According to the bank of England, the UK SME lending sector is estimated at £175bn of which £20bn relates to invoice finance and other types of asset based finance. Although post-recession SME lending by banks has declined by approximately 25% from its peak, the asset finance sector has grown strongly at a rate of c. 6% p.a. over the last 5 years and now has total funds in use of approximately £20bn.

In total c, 45,000 businesses in the UK and Ireland used asset based lending in 2015 (Asset Based Finance Association).

Advisers to the transaction: For Newco: Shoosmiths – legal advisers RSM – financial DD provider Ashcombe Advisers – commercial DD provider For Management: SamCorp – management advisers Fox Williams – legal advisers For GLE: Clearwater – corporate advisers MBM Commercial – legal advisers

News: from around the world

News: from around the world

Luxury Interiors London & Casa Forma Announce Merger Mayfair’s award-winning architecture and interior design firm Casa Forma and interior sourcing and property development company Luxury Interiors London have joined forces to operate as Casa Forma London.

The mergers primary objective will be to solidify the competitive West End interior design market, while growing their global presence through shared expertise. Through the combined team, Casa Forma London will offer clients a comprehensive turnkey luxury development service which will include everything from overseeing property acquisition, planning, architecture, interior design, right down to the dressing and staging of each property.

back to us whenever they acquire a new property for themselves or their families thereby allowing us to grow organically through repeat business from themselves as well as referrals from family and friends - a testimony to our service.”

Together Casa Forma London now employs an international team of over 20 experienced design professionals including interior designers, qualified architects, project managers, quantity surveyors and property acquisition specialists.

“Both companies are coming into this merger with a similar mind-set and focus. We both come from existing points of excellence within the industry and a single minded vision of the future of the venture. As Casa Forma London we will be able to offer a holistic luxury service for clients from offering our expertise in finding the right property to dressing your space and everything in between” said Faiza Seth, Founder of Casa Forma.

Radhika Seth, CEO, said: “We are really excited about the new venture. Both Casa Forma and Luxury Interiors London have built a reputation over the past several years of delivering incredibly luxurious projects for a discerning international client base. Our clients have enabled us to expand our services and our markets geographically by continually coming

Currently, the newly merged company is working on 9 development projects throughout Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Kensington, Holland Park, Marylebone and St Johns Wood. Internationally, they are designing over 15 luxury residences across India, the UAE and Hong Kong as well as a boutique 5-star hotel and restaurant in Saudi.

QVS Electrical Wholesale sold to Ryness Electrical Avondale was pleased to announce the sale of QVS on 12th April, the well-known electrical products supplier and online retailer to Ryness Electrical. Established in 1994, QVS operates out of 13 retail units across southern UK and provides an on-line same or next day delivery service on a nationwide basis. Over the last 15 years, the business has developed relationships with factories in the Far East and created its own ranges of branded products. There are over 70 staff.

As the two founder directors take retirement, the acquisition allows this respected brand as part of a larger Group to add new stock lines, develop the business and increase revenues going forward. The sale was enacted in just two months.

Ryness Finance Director, Steve Westbrook said, “Avondale’s introduction and assistance in the acquisition was invaluable and we are proud to take such an established brand into our wider Group with plans to develop, grow and expand the business”.

The principle shareholder Peter Brain welcomed the sale to Ryness, adding “This deal recognises the strength of the QVS business. Avondale not only found a buyer at a critical time but held our hand throughout. We feel sure the business will continue to grow from strength to strength and add value to our customers”.

Acquisition International - April 2016 9

Managing Director of the Month 1604JC24

Delivered Health Solutions

Managing Director of the Month Delivered Health Solutions Ltd provide high quality products and services for care homes that deal with cleaning as well as infection prevention and control. We spoke to Barbara Meeks, MD of Delivered Health Solutions, to find out more about her company and get an insight into what it’s like working in her industry.

Company: Delivered Health Solutions Ltd Name: Barbara Meeks Email: Barbara.meeks@ deliveredhealthsolutions.co.uk Web: deiveredhealthsolutions.co.uk Address: The Bridge Business Centre, Cheshire House, Gorsey Lane.Widnes, WA8 0RP, Cheshire Telephone: 0151 422 9335

As part of our ethos, we aim to supply green products wherever possible in order to ensure that care home residents and staff are using the safest and effective products available. Having spent over 25 years in the sector, and being once part of a care home group, I fully understand the challenges care homes face on a day-to-day basis.

My career began in pharmaceutical wholesaling in the hospital sector, and then I moved on to developing homecare services for the chronically sick being cared for in their own homes. It was here where I learnt my trade so to speak, and learnt that everything you do, good or bad, has a direct effect on people.

My first position as MD was for a one-stop shop medical and janitorial supplies company providing products to care homes. My role in the business was to ensure that we have products and services that can help the customers meet those challenges. From my experience, being at the helm of any company requires a mixture of leadership, responsibility, pressure and success. It can be quite a roller-coaster ride, but one that is worth it when you see that you have made a difference.

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As you can imagine, working in an industry such this involves a very ‘hands on’ approach and is an education that you simply cannot get from any college or university. It’s an arena where you always look at ways in which you can make things better, and at Delivered Health Solutions I have always strived to break the mould of customers doing what they have always done. During my time, I have introduced new processes and procedures for the basic housekeeping functions, and searched for new innovative products that would change the concept of cleaning in a healthcare environment.

Outside of our industry, there are number of things I do which I believe would benefit any business.

From my experience, your accountant is always your best friend when running a successful company.

Furthermore, you need to have strong leadership skills to ensure that your team will follow you along in your journey. First and foremost, having a good team begins with recruiting the right people who share your attitude, energy and vision. If they share these values, the rest you can train in.

Looking further into 2016 and beyond, I am confident that our company will continue to grow.

Our plan is to continue to evolve and innovate, which will allow us to adapt to any emerging changes or developments that come along the way.

Deal of the Month 1604AC76

Deal of the Month Company: AUA Private Equity Partners, LLC Name: Steven Flyer Email: Steven.Flyer@auaequity.com Web: www.auaequity.com Address: 666 Fifth Avenue, 27th Floor New York, NY 10103 Phone: 001 (212) 231-8600

AUA Equity seek to achieve superior, risk-adjusted returns by harnessing their private equity and operating expertise to support lower middle-market enterprises in realising their fullest potential. AUA Private Equity Partners believes that active sponsorship and fully aligned partnerships reflect our firm’s long-term and strategic outlook for growing companies and unlocking value.

AUA Equity is a minority-owned, operationallyfocused, private equity firm that makes control and significant minority equity investments in companies in the consumer, media, and business services sectors.

In addition, they target Hispanic-oriented companies and family-owned businesses located in the United States. They define the Hispanic-oriented market as companies that are Hispanic-owned, currently target or could benefit from targeting the Hispanic consumer, or predominately employ Hispanics.

The team at AUA Equity brings together different disciplines and perspectives in analysing each investment opportunity. The firm is led by Managing Partner Andy Unanue, former Chief Operating Officer of Goya Foods, Inc., the largest and most successful Hispanic-owned food company in the United States (founded by the Unanue family) and this experience is something the firm leverages.

They also draw on the strength of their operating executive board to provide additional industry insights, guidance, and operational and strategic direction.

The team has significant experience managing companies’ post-investment as private equity investors and operators and is thus able to better assist smaller companies in executing their business plans. In an interview with firm’s Steven Flyer, he lifts the lid on the Equity/Raymundos Food Group transaction, how to stand out from the competition, the role of staff in the success of the business and the challenges the firm faces in 2016 and beyond.

The AUA Equity/Raymundos Food Group transaction Raymundos Food Group was identified through a combination of research and meeting the company face to face at a food show in the Unites States Flyer reveals. Raymundos Food Group produces flans, puddings, gelatines and other refrigerated desserts and snacks which are value-orientated products sold to Walmart and other value supermarket chains, and it also has a Hispanic orientation.

Part of AUA Equity’s strategy is to develop transactions outside of the formal auction process so they carry out much groundwork and grass route sourcing actions. They met the company at a trade show and spent time with the owner of the business which led to a transaction, so a lot of “research and relationship-building” is what led up to the deal.

Flyer goes on to explain that, “we saw a business that was similar to our targeted strategy, it was a family-owned business and it was targeting the Latino community”. In terms of manufacturing, “we felt that it had an interesting niche because other gelatine brands such as Gelo were declining in sales” but the category targeted at the Hispanic market

was growing. “This gave us the opportunity to build a family-owned business and build up systems, operations, a sales force for marketing and branding to help build the business” he continues. They have also added a new CEO and CFO, a sales team, as well as redeveloping the website and they have built the brokerage network and “we continue to adds value to the company” Flyer stresses.

Challenges during the completion of the deal Working with family businesses it is apparent that they are very smart business owners and entrepreneurs, but perhaps they are not the most sophisticated in regards to systems. They may be lacking in audit financials, a built out infrastructure or they may not have the most extensive accounting systems, “so much of what AUA Equity had to do was to piecemeal a lot of the sales and financial materials together and we saw opportunities to implement better systems and functions” Flyer explains and says that acquiring Raymundos Food Group was an opportunity as well as a challenge.

On the impact the transaction is having today, is twofold Flyer explains. Firstly, AUA Equity continues to grow the brand and market awareness, indeed some of their products sell very well in US supermarkets.

Secondly, because AUA Equity closed the transaction and people heard about it they were successfully able to acquire Noga Dairies recently, who produce drinkable and fridge yoghurts and smoothies. This acquisition gives AUA Equity the opportunity to “expand the Raymundos Food Group from what was traditionally refrigerated desserts into a business that now offer natural and healthier products” and thus creates a platform for further growth.

The future Better packaging and marketing help AUA Equity to stand out from the competition Flyer underlines as well as creating a brand awareness and he stresses they have a very good quality product in terms of taste, value and price and he said they need to continue innovating in terms of providing new flavours and products. Concerning the future of the industry AUA Equity is a part of is that “consumers are looking for cleaner labels and more natural products and less artificial flavourings”. Also, “continuing to innovate and develop new products that excite the customer” and prompt them to buy their existing favourite flavour and try some new ones. “Meeting the demands of customers in terms of flavour and profiles as well as consumer demands on the “more natural and healthier side, which is one of the reasons we decided to acquire Noga Dairies.

The Raymundos Food Group transaction “exemplifies our strategy and the success we will have in that category” Flyer concludes.

Acquisition International - April 2016 11

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USA Industrial Deal of the Year for the Checkers Industrial Safety Products Inc. (now Checkers Safety Group) acquisition of Superior Manufacturing Group, Inc. transaction Company: Checkers Safety Group Name: Ray Torres Email: rtorres@ checkersindustrial.com Web: www.checkersindustrial.com and www.notrax.com Address: 620 Compton Street, Broomfield, CO 80020 Phone: +1 720 890 1187

Superior Manufacturing Group, Inc. has grown into one of the largest integrated manufacturers of floor matting products in the world. Superior Manufacturing Group, Inc. is a market leader in mats for professional use under the brand Notrax® and can be found in a wide variety of industries for industrial, commercial, food service applications.

Superior is now owned and operated by Checkers Industrial Safety Products who are also dedicated to quality products, customer service and sales support.

We spoke to the Checkers president, Ray Torres, to find out more about the firm specializing in ground-based safety solutions.

Checkers Industrial Safety Products Inc Acquisition of Superior Manufacturing Group Checkers Industrial Safety Products was founded in 1987, by Steve Henry who focussed his initial product line on large wheel chocks which he developed to hold or check (hence the company name Checkers) large haulage trucks in the mining industry. He developed a wheel chock for the first 160-tonne vehicles and today Checkers manufactures products that could check a 400-tonne vehicle. “Henry then sold the business to a private equity group in 2010, which is when I joined the firm.

Since then, the focus has been to grow organically as well as through acquisitions” Torres explains.

Superior Manufacturing Group Inc. was founded in 1948 and privately owned by the Wood family, Torres explains. The Wood family consisted of a number of brothers who were looking to retire and “so we were fortunate to acquire Superior Manufacturing Group”.

One of the things that Superior Manufacturing Group brought along in the acquisition is that they manufacture their own products in ISO certified facilities and offer global distribution capabilities with distribution centres throughout the United States and in Europe. Expanding on this point, he goes on to say, “the experience and knowledge gained from manufacturing these products on-site allow the firm to better adapt to market demands and provide flexibility and quick response to everchanging customer requirements. In addition, helping them to compete in today’s global market, they have quality manufacturing partners overseas as well.”

Another key element of the deal was their European footprint. Continuing the story, Torres tells us that the Checkers group were trying to establish their European presence for many years, but they did not have sufficient volume to support manufacturing, warehousing or stocking capabilities in this respect.

The acquisition brought a strong presence in Europe, “but it also diversified much of our risk profile because we were concentrated in a couple of industries and sectors that were going through issues (such as mining, oil and gas)” Torres continues.

Production and customization of the Notrax® anti-fatigue industrial mats 12 Acquisition International - April 2016

Notrax® Company Statistics • They have 135 Notrax® matting products always in stock in various sizes and colours; • Notrax® products are shipped within 24-hours; • 99.98% of their shipments are on time; • Notrax® works with distributors in 40 countries in USA, Europe, East Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Asia, Middle East and Africa; • Their marketing materials are available in 19 languages.

USA Industrial Deal of the Year

Product overview The Checkers Safety Group now boasts 4 power brands, the first of which is Linebacker®, which focuses on cable management systems, cable ramps and hose bridges. Cable management systems are laid on the ground and cables are run through them so that “pedestrians and vehicles can go across streets and walk on them without being exposed to the cables” he says and reveals that this type of product has been used in every Olympics event since around 1986.

Notrax® is a range of ergonomic, anti-fatigue safety mats for professional use in industrial, commercial and food service environments, and is probably the largest in the world or pretty close in that segment, as well as dust-control matting entrance matting.

TuffTrak® offers a range of light, medium and heavy duty outdoor ground and turf protection products, such as temporary access roadways, platforms and flooring for special events. The Terraplas® product line is a specialized grass protection system, used commonly in professional sports stadiums worldwide, including on soccer stadiums to avoid damage to the grass during concerts or events which is evident in Wembley Stadium. “They were our first customer in this product line, and we have a tremendous relationship with them, through our acquisition of the Terraplas line of products” Torres remarks.

Monster Motion Safety deals with products for “motion related” activities, such as vehicular and pedestrian traffic safety with the original range of wheel chocks, warning whips, beacon lights, and parking stops. Warning whips alert extremely large vehicles on a worksite that smaller vehicles are near.

Torres mentioned that “Checkers is an authorized vendor for the US Military, as well as in Japan and supplies many of the major air carriers in the world, including Quantas, United, American and others”.

Company ethos The firm’s overriding principle is to “protect people, assets and environment which is what drives our products and acquisition strategy” Torres says so we ensure the acquired products have a safety element to them to protect people and vehicles. “All of our ground protection products are essential to protect the environment from spillage, such as oil getting on the ground and also to prevent grass and turf being trampled on by heavy duty equipment, for example in stadiums where concerts are held. Many of our products are manufactured using recycled material, something we are very proud of” he adds.

The three strategies of the company are: • Sales growth initiative; • Profit growth initiative and most importantly; • People growth.

“If we get the right people and help them grow, then the first two elements on the strategy almost happen by default” Torres reveals. “Our team is therefore instrumental to everything that we do as a company, and they have been able to participate not only in the acquisition, but also in the seamless integration of businesses and aligning with the culture which has been very important to us” he adds.

TuffTrak heavy duty ground protection mats in use

On winning the award for the USA Industrial Industrial Deal of the Year for the Checkers Industrial Safety Products Inc. acquisition of Superior Manufacturing Group, Inc. transaction, Torres says they are proud of the award received and what the firm has achieved, and that it is very gratifying to have the efforts of the team here recognised.

Challenges for the future The challenges in the future are the larger economic issues concerning the global economy, foreign exchange, “and the strength of the dollar is a challenge for us as we sell and produce a lot of our products in US Dollars” Torres reveals. “The price of oil and commodities in general affect some of our key market segments (mining, oil and gas), but because we are diversified in the industries we serve, that allows us to alleviate those issues because some markets are performing extremely well” he adds.

The key to the firm’s success, who have carried out around ten acquisitions over the last fifteen months, is that we like to think “our success is attributed to our awareness of the legacy of the companies and the brands we acquire. We tend to believe we are a friendly acquirer, and most companies we take on are happier after the acquisition than they were before. We really look for companies that have a good cultural fit for us as well as adding products that fit well within our product portfolio. We will continue to acquire companies and therefore grow through acquisitions, which is just one element of our growth strategy” Torres concludes.

Cable management system in use

Warning whips alert extremely large vehicles on a worksite that smaller vehicles are near

Client base The Checkers Safety Group sells solely through distribution to over 70 countries, and about one-third of their sales are international (in UK & Europe as well as Mongolia, Russia, India, Latin America, Japan and Australia). “Our products are pretty much all over the word so our client base is indeed global and includes major large distributors such as Grainger and Uline as well as local distribution partners in the countries we have a presence in” Torres details.

Approach to clients and people An aspect of the firm’s strategy is the push-pull factor, in that they try to educate the end user about their products to create demand (that is the pull) and through their distribution base, they are supplying the products to the market place (that is the push).

The founder of Superior Manufacturing Group Inc. in 1948 Joe Wood (far right).

Acquisition International - April 2016 13

Industrials Company: Bureau van Dijk E-Mail: bvd@bvdinfo.com Web Address: www.bvdinfo.com

The value of mergers and acquisitions targeting industrials companies climbed in the second half of 2015 to USD 764,172 million, with value reaching its highest point of the entire period under review, dating back to the beginning of 2006. H1 2015 was also impressive, reaching USD 714,182 million.

In total there were 12,089 deals worth a combined USD 764,172 million announced during the second half of 2015, according to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk. In terms of value this represents a 7 per cent increase on H1 2015, when USD 714,182 million was invested in industrials companies. By contrast, volume actually declined from 12,223 to 12,089 over the same timeframe.

2016 has gotten off to a fairly slow start; in the first three months of this year USD 264,287 million has been invested across 4,684 transactions. If the first quarter is a sign of things to come H1 2016 is unlikely to be a record breaker and will probably bring to an end two consecutive six month periods of increasing values. The result is hardly surprising as 2016 has been fairly quiet in terms of M&A activity across the board so far. Zephyr’s Global Q1 2016 report shows dealmaking of USD 861,749 million across 20,040 deals worldwide in the first three months of the year, marking a decline on both fronts from Q4 2015 and Q1 2015.

Despite the fact that 2016 has not been a recordbreaker thus far, either globally or within the industrials segment, the latter has actually seen a few sizable transactions signed off. All of the year’s top ten deals to date were worth over USD 3,000 million, while one broke the USD 40,000 million barrier. This was ChemChina’s USD 43,000 million agreement to acquire Swiss agricultural pesticides and fertilisers maker Syngenta via its CNAC Saturn (NL) subsidiary.

This was followed by a transaction worth USD 11,300 million as the Sherwin-Williams Company agreed to buy Minneapolis-headquartered paint, coatings and coating intermediates manufacturer the Valspar Corporation. Third place was taken by a deal worth USD 5,729 million as Anhui Water Resources Development Co signed on the dotted line to take over Anhui Construction Engineering Group Co. If transactions of similar sizes can continue to be

14 Acquisition International - April 2016

announced between now and the end of June, there is still hope that dealmaking can reach similar levels to those recorded in 2016.

A number of world regions have been targeted in industrials deals worth a significant amount in 2016 to date. The most valuable region is the Far East and Central Asia, which has received investment of USD 114,241 million, placing it well ahead of second-placed Western Europe with USD 75,817 million. North America was third with USD 53,725 million. Despite the gulf between these regional values, the three regions were actually targeted in a very similar number of deals; Far East and Central Asia topped the rankings with 1,621, followed by Western Europe with 1,419 and North America with 1,000. The Far East and Central Asia’s impressive value result is not surprising given that companies in the region were targeted in four of the quarter’s ten largest transactions. The most valuable of these was the aforementioned Anhui Construction Engineering Group Co deal, while others targeted in high value deals include CITIC Real Estate, Liaoning Zhongwang Group and Inotera Memories. The USD 75,817 invested in Western European industrials firms was significantly boosted by the USD 43,000 million Syngenta deal, which was the largest deal signed off worldwide across all sectors in Q1 2016.

Although 2016 has not exactly sprinted out of the blocks in terms of deal activity in the industrials sector, there is every chance that a few more deals on a similar scale to those mentioned could be announced over the coming months. This would undoubtedly have a considerable effect on overall results for the sector and could even push results closer to the levels recorded throughout 2016.

However, it is worth noting that 2016 hit record highs in terms of dealmaking worldwide and will likely prove a hard act to follow.

Sector Talk

Number and Aggregate Value (mil USD) of Industrials Deals Globally: 2006-2016 YTD (as at 31 March 2016)

Number and Aggregate Value (Mil USD) of Industrials Deals Globally by Target Sector: 2006 - 2016 to date (as at 31 March 2016)

Deal half yearly value Number (Announced date) of deals

Aggregate deal value (mil USD)

Zephus classification (target)

Number of deals

Aggregate deal value (mil USD)

H1 2016

4,684

264,287

Industrial, Electric & Electronic Machinery

79,493

3,547,931

H2 2015

12,089

764,172

1,669,622

12,223

714,182

Chemicals, Petroleum, Rubber & Plastic

28,838

H1 2015 H2 2014

11,616

531,937

26,567

1,262,324

H1 2014

10,720

545,161

Metals & Metal Products

997,728

11,006

507,556

Personal, Leisure & Business Services

21,201

H2 2013 H1 2013

9,796

318,205

Transport Manufacturing

12,758

957,753

H2 2012

8,582

301,685

Property Services

16,083

920,349

249,998

Wholesaling

14,904

904,545

Construction

24,161

625,185

8,003

580,400

H1 2012

8,205

H2 2011

7,897

274,657

H1 2011

7,951

372,797

Computer, IT and Internet services

H2 2010

8,335

294,419

Mining & Extraction

6,994

500,563

9,496

494,090

H1 2010

8,469

254,058

Leather, Stone, Clay & Glass products

H2 2009

8,272

282,014

Banking, Insurance & Financial Services

4,708

408,919

H1 2009

7,831

299,556

394,677

7,661

259,143

Wood, Furniture & Paper Manufacturing

9,416

H2 2008 H1 2008

8,309

334,733

1,063

221,687

H2 2007

8,486

504,824

Public Administration, Education, Health Social Services

H1 2007

8,540

535,182

2,164

200,186

H2 2006

7,433

371,787

Transport, Freight, Storage & Travel Services

200,137

6,599

392,233

Miscellaneous Manufacturing

6,305

H1 2006

Number and Aggregate Value (Mil USD) of Industrials Deals Globally by Deal Type: 2006-2016 to date (as at 31 March 2016) Deal type

Number of deals

Aggregate deal value (mil USD)

Acquisition

56,516

4,280,955

Minority stake Capital increase Institutional buy-out Merger

97,486 24,078 4,718 286

2,322,899 1,244,960 518,687 30,190

Management buy-out

1,381

20,200

MBI / MBO

72

672

Demerger

204

572

Management buy-in

165

268

Number of Industrials Deals by Region: 2006 - 2016 YTD (as at 31 March 2016) World region (target) Far East and Central Asia

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

5,650

5,986

7,876

9,266

10,347

1,621

Western Europe North America Eastern Europe South and Central America

3,550 3,582 1,704 366

3,880 3,815 1,713 383

4,749 4,239 2,169 506

4,512 4,853 2,339 457

6,120 4,715 1,707 494

1,419 1,000 380 103

Oceania Africa Middle East

716 119 160

795 113 110

843 196 202

528 265 147

433 314 187

70 60 38

April Q1 2016 roundup The aggregate value of global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) spanning all sectors increased in the second half of 2015 as investment levels reached record highs. In all there were 48,739 deals worth a combined USD 3,087,633 million signed off over the six months, according to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk.

At present 2016 does not look likely to reach such heights as dealmaking levels have been fairly restrained in the year to date. In the first quarter there were 20,095 announced deals worth a combined USD 853,684 million, meaning that there will need to be a significant upturn in both activity and individual high value deals if results are to come close to the levels recorded last year.

Nevertheless, it is worth highlighting the fact that 2015 was a particularly impressive year, especially with regard to deal value. H2 2015 is the most valuable six month period on record, according to Zephyr, while H1 was surpassed only by the first half of 2007, when dealmaking of USD 2,763,650 million was recorded. Volume was also high, with 48,843 and 48,739 deals signed off in H1 and H2, respectively. However, the 49,020 deals announced in H2 2014 makes it the most prolific period for dealmaking on record. Nevertheless, there is still an appetite for large deals, as evidenced by the larger transactions signed off in H1 2016, giving many hope that more high value purchases will be announced by the end of June with a view to pushing values back towards 2015’s levels.

North America was once again the most targeted region in Q1, bringing in USD 307,156 million across 5,962 deals over the three months. In terms of value, the Far East and Central Asia placed second with USD 277,704 million, followed by Western Europe with USD 190,950 million. Western Europe was the runner-up by volume with 5,735 deals, while the Far East and Central Asia and Eastern Europe came next with 4,772 and 2,029, respectively.

To sum up, deal activity has been far from record breaking in the first quarter of 2016. However, given the fact that 2015 was a very impressive year it is worth remembering that it would be very difficult for 2016 to match it. As the year progresses it will become clearer whether activity has fallen off a cliff or whether it has simply settled after a busy 2015.

Acquisition International - April 2016 15

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CEO of the Year, New York SuperDerivatives is a global company providing real time comprehensive financial data, systems, technology and advanced analytics for derivatives trading and risk management in all asset classes. It includes a large research and development (R&D) division that develops the company products for the full spectrum of professionals in the financial markets, including banks, corporations, hedge funds, asset managers, insurers, auditors, brokers.

Company: SuperDerivatives Derivatives (owned now by InterContinental Exchange) Name: Dr. David Gershon Email: david@gershon.com Web: www.superderivatives.com Address: Azrieli Center, round tower 28th floor, Tel Aviv, Israel Phone: +972 544638585

Since the day its Latin root was first coined, the word “super” has always meant the same thing. Above.

Beyond. Better. Including Super in the company’s name was their deliberate choice. To say to their prospects, their industry and themselves that SuperDerivatives wasn’t just another resource, but an extraordinary one. Super sets a bar they have to live up to every day, and establishes an expectation in the eyes of their clients that they will receive from the firm the absolute highest level of solutions and services, so they can make consistently smarter and better decisions. Super means smartest, fastest and best. It isn’t just a word to SuperDerivatives, it’s the way they do business.

History Founded in 2000, SuperDerivatives has repeatedly brought technology and services to the market that have been ground breaking and revolutionary. It was the first company to deliver professional financial systems entirely over the internet. SuperDerivatives proprietary analytics and market data had the firm widely recognised as the benchmark for option pricing; this work in OTC market transparency led many industry observers to comment on the contribution SuperDerivatives has made to the growth in derivatives volume.

In 2004 the company established a market data division publishing implied data from the OTC markets utilising its expertise in market observations and analytics to provide clean, smooth volatility surfaces based on market activity. This was followed by an independent valuation service capable of pricing anything in the markets.

Advances in risk analysis and pre-trade tools culminated in 2010 with the launch of the world’s most advanced cross-asset derivatives pricing, structuring and pre-trade analysis system, SDX. This multi-award winning system included specific modules for traders, sales people and structurers and became the corner stone for specialist modules for corporate treasurers, middle office analysts and risk managers.

In 2011 SuperDerivatives launched the world’s first anonymous, multi-bank trading system for FX options in partnership with FXCM Pro and this was followed in 2012 by the launch of a market data platform, DGX, that is beginning to transform the way the

16 Acquisition International - April 2016

markets view, access and manage news, chat, cash and derivatives data The firm’s mission The company’s high level mission is to be among the top 3 vendors in the financial market data space.

The day to day mission is to deliver its clients the best and most up to date market data, analytics and systems in the market place. The technique to achieve it is to constantly engage with clients and get their feedback, requests, wish lists, criticism, etc. and document all in the company system. A special team is constantly reviewing this information and drive conclusions and recommendations regarding the steps our company needs to take (that is new products, services, enhancements, changes in existing products and services, and so on) senior management discusses the conclusions on a weekly meeting and make decisions if required.

Market Data SuperDerivatives has, for some time, been recognised as the leader in the derivatives market data, and now aims to become the leader in all aspects of market data. DGX, has already been recognised as the most innovative, technologically advanced market data platform in the world.

The Cloud SuperDerivatives has been delivering cloud services since its inception, before anyone coined the term ‘the cloud’. Everything they do has been designed from the outset to operate over the internet. The company is a regular early adopter of the very latest browser, server management and database technology to deliver optimal performance at the best possible price points.

How to ensure the CEO’s vision is executed across the company The vision is conveyed to the employees via quarterly held town halls for each time zone separately. The company is ran in a very organized fashion- like a big factory or machine where all teams are like the cog wheels rolling together fully synchronized. The vision has to be fully divided into what it is made of, its components or building block so that each team knows what its role in executing the vision. There is a team whose role is to ensure that all teams are synchronized and work together toward achieving the goals set to the teams.

CEO of the Year, New York

Challenges and opportunities facing the industry In the current environment financial markets are conducting major cost cutting in order to reduce expenses. Markets data (data feed, data terminals, systems) is typically the biggest spending now and major efforts are done to reduce it. The biggest opportunity of SuperDerivatives is to deliver the best products at the lowest price and take over market share from its competitors such as Bloomberg and ThomsonReuters. On the other hand, the challenge is to sell its products to clients that already have partial solutions that do not wish to replace their current vendors in which case superderivatives is purely an additional cost and as such budgets are quite limited these days.

For example, in 2012 the company launched it revolutionary market data terminal DGX based on free text and extremely user friendly terminal that contain the largest amount of financial information in the market and is completely web based / live application on tablets and smart phones. Compared to its competitors’ terminals DGX looks like a leap in data terminals. DGX uses very advanced technology for distribution of large amount of data to a very large number of subscribers very fast and as a result does not require very large teams for data distribution.

Thus the direct cost of DGX to the company is a lot lower than its competitors and allow SuperDerivatives to compete very successfully with much lower price than its competitors.

Staying at the forefront of emerging developments The company uses the most advanced technologies and constantly upgrade the technology and look and feel of its products and services. Speed of development is key at the company and it operates in a way that allows a lot of flexibility in changing priorities of developments. The R&D operates in the scrum methodology where all tasks are broken to 2 weeks’ sessions and so every 2 weeks’ tasks can be reprioritized. The product management team which navigates the direction of the R&D within the umbrella of the vision is responsible to steer the development toward the forefront of any emerging developments.

which is a very dynamic high tech area that attracts the best talents and technologies and the company enjoys this very advanced technological environment to enhance its products and technology.

How to develop and maintain the standards In long 13 years path I read management books and met lots of managers and management consultants and absorbed ideas and concepts. I adopted some of them which I found relevant for me. I strict to use some principles, such as accept to the company only nice people that can work in teams, full respect to each employee no matter if the person is senior or not, be open to every employee, encourage employees to bring their own ideas, encourage team work, each employee that hits a crisis will receive support from the company (financial, moral, services, paid days off to deals with problems, and so on), try to have as close as possible balance between number of men and women, equality is salaries between people that perform the same role.

What distinguishes the company from its competitors The company is unique in 3 areas: 1. In the professional aspect it is a unique combination of market data producer, great R&D team that developed the technology and a superb team of quantitative analyst to ensure that the company services offer the most accurate information in the most user friendly and useful way for the client. This is a huge advantage over our competitors.

2. In the employment environment aspect it is a very unique large group of people who are all smart, nice to work with, cooperate with colleagues, and highly motivated. Many employees of the company views this as the key reason they like to work for the company!

3. The company uses the most advanced technologies which make the cost of running our products and services a lot lower than our competitors. As a results it can compete on the price while offering a lot better products and services.

The future The company was recently acquired by Intercontinental Exchange which owns many exchanges and produces enormous amount of high quality market data and has probably the highest number of professional clients in the market data space. This opens the door for SuperDerivatives to offer its data, products and services in a very efficient and low cost manner and expand its client base enormously very fast. The mission to be among the top 3 data vendors seem closer than ever.

Dr. David Gershon David founded SuperDerivatives in 2000 with the aim of introducing transparency to the world of options. Since then, the company has expanded rapidly to have a strong global presence and is today recognised as the benchmark for option pricing and a market leader in derivatives technology including front end platforms, risk management systems, revaluation services and online execution utilities.

Dr. Gershon’s vision to bring transparency to the world of options has materialised with a significant part of derivatives professionals all over the world utilise SuperDerivatives platforms for their day to day activities. Furthermore, many industry observers credit SuperDerivatives for the sizeable growth in the number of options users over the past couple of years and the dramatic increase in liquidity.

How to ensure that technology is ahead of the market There is the chief architect team which constantly reviews technologies and embraces those that seems relevant and helpful for the company. The implementation of new technologies by the R&D is conducted by the executive VP for R&D. Offering data and services to a sector requires deep knowledge and expertise by the sales and product team of the company. It is quite challenging to teach and train the teams to a level that they have adequate knowledge to develop a process toward a sale in several sectors. The methodology we developed was vertical by asset classes and horizontal by services.

However, sales teams constantly received training in all asset classes in order to allow them cover their accounts in all asset classes while getting assistance from product specialists and product managers in each asset class.

Insight into the Tel Aviv region The company sells all over the world with offices in London, NY, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Tel Aviv and there is a lot of similarity between its efforts in the different regions. Yet it has one huge advantage that its R&D is based in Tel Aviv Acquisition International - April 2016 17

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CEO of the Year - Belgium Kollector has developed an information system which provides real time statistics about radio broadcasting and online distribution, worldwide.

Company: KOLLECTOR Name: Jacques Krischer Email: jacques.krischer@ kollector.com Web: www.kollector.com Address: Avenue Louise, 1050 Brussels Telephone: +32 491 940821

A two-year R&D plan in the acoustical recognition field gave Kollector the opportunity to propose a unique system for any right owner (composer, performer, publisher, collecting society, …) to track, from any browser, their musical works, real-time, worldwide and from any source (radio, TV, advertisement, streaming, …), without the need to wait for a report.

Kollector is the only one company in this field to satisfy the SAS 70 / ISAE 3402 norm which certifies our technology as well as our financial processes.

This gives Kollector a major competitive advantage as we don’t only provide monitoring listings but certified statements. In an interview with the firm’s Jacques Krischer, he gives insight into being CEO, the daily challenges he faces and he explains that his role was first of all to change the business model from B2C to B2B. How does it feel to have won the CEO of the Year – Belgium award?

I’m very proud to receive it and I see it as a celebration of a vision I share with many to help the music industry to change for the benefit of every creator.

But I have to be fair and modest as I’m not Kollector’s founder and didn’t have the original idea.

18 Acquisition International - April 2016

What feedback do you get from clients on the work you and your organisation does?

Even if our structure was originally very small, from day one, we dedicated a task force for customer’s management. Which doesn’t only mean we cared about our customer’s satisfaction, but also about coming along with them to help them to optimise the revenues of their own assets. This is really appreciated.

What are some of the daily challenges and opportunities you face as CEO of your company?

The main challenges come from the music industry who is reticent to change. The business model isn’t a focus on an industrial approach anymore: every individual can play a role and become an actor. They don’t need the support of a so called “industry” to have a role to play. Here is where we can help.

Changes are on their way, and they are as ineluctable as they are needed.

As CEO, can you share any significant achievements from the past calendar year, such as other accolades won or your company’s track record for the services you deliver?

The most important achievements are the contracts we signed with major aggregators (companies which process the audio files on behalf of the right owners to be distributed by online music platforms). Thanks to this, we’re in a position to monitor any music work which is legally distributed and broadcasted on the major radios worldwide. We’re too young to have received other awards but I’m ready to collect some of them in a near future as I’m deeply convinced our role could bring more justice and transparency in the music industry.

As CEO, what do you see as the major challenges facing your organisation in 2016?

As we’re now set with a new structure, the main challenge remains to convince the music industry that we aren’t undertaking such an endeavour for our benefit only, but for a common benefit. There is a recent shift in mentality that came about with new technologies and we need to adapt - doing nothing isn’t an option: it’s about survival of the fittest!

When hiring new staff to work in your organisation, what qualities and attributes are you looking for?

How long have you served as CEO at this firm and how has the company performed since you took the helm?

I joined the company 4 years ago. I initiated a structure change in order to include the assets and activities in a larger group. Four years later, this step is finally reached and we can now operate with dedicated and stronger tools for our development.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I like Kollector’s motto (which isn’t mine): Information is power. This is absolutely true in our field, of course, but also generally speaking.

Professional skills of course; but above all, a sparkle in the eye, a genuine enthusiasm and trust in your own abilities!

CEO of the Year - Belgium

Acquisition International - April 2016 19

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Doing Business Overseas

Doing Business Overseas Doing Business Overseas Landing Dione is a Consultant, who specialises in real estate management and strategies, quality management, value chain management, project management and business development. Usually, UNIDO – United Nations for Industrial Development Organization - hire him for temporary consultant jobs.

More specifically, he is in charge of developing the market in Africa for the French Company GENAPI (www.genapi.fr) which specialises in publishing software for Notaries and Lawyers.

Company: GROUPE D’APPUI A LA PERFORMANCE SARL. Address: 20, MERMOZ SOTRAC – Entrée Cité SIPRES. Name: Landing DIONE Phone: +221 70 459 59 59 Email: grappe.sarl@gmail.com or landing.dione@outlook.fr

Acquisition International - April 2016 21

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Revolutionising Resolution – The Rise of Online Dispute Resolution Name: Alex Bargate Company: Ajuve Email: getsettled@ajuve.com Website: www.ajuve.com

Ajuve is a highly innovative online dispute resolution service whose slogan is ‘Hate lawyers? Love Ajuve”. A bold statement, perhaps, but their new service is targeting the public’s many reservations about the legal industry, and is designed to revolutionise the settlement of disputes. We engage in a conversation with Alex Bargate, CEO and Co-founder of Ajuve, to find out more.

As a new, quick and very low cost service, Ajuve provides quite an enticing alternative to settling disputes. The service will include a suite of three modules; a simple settlement calculator, an online mediation service and an online arbitration service.

The online arbitration service is the main component and will be ready at launch, with the other two modules following shortly afterwards.

Ajuve is available to almost anyone, where a simple Ajuve Dispute Resolution clause is placed in both parties’ contracts, ensuring their disputes avoid complex and costly litigation. Added to its accessibility, the Ajuve Dispute Resolution clause can simply be downloaded from their website.

Ajuve is the brainchild of father and son duo Quentin Bargate, who heads Bargate Murray, a leading commercial law firm in London and his tech start-up entrepreneur son, Alex. It all began a few years ago when Quentin, a seasoned litigator, told Alex of his frustration at the cost, formality and complexity of litigation and the idea of designing something better was born. .

Alex has no doubts that its online alternative will transform the industry. “It is inevitable,” he says.

“For example, last year Professor Richard Susskind, the IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, said the civil court system is “too costly, to slow and too complex…”. Furthermore, if you ask anyone with a dispute how they are going to resolve it, you’ll find is that most people simply do not have a clue.”

With the many drawbacks and complications of the courts system, the legal industry as a whole is simply out of touch with the ordinary man or woman on the street. As Alex explains: “Broadly speaking, people are intimidated by the court system. The impression they have is that courts are expensive, use outdated procedures and arcane terminology and are inconvenient. Not to mention the fact that they are also very slow. The average person sees a system apparently designed to benefit fat cat lawyers with deep pockets, and not them.”

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Drawing back to Professor Susskind, his February 2015 report stated that “There is no doubt that online dispute resolution is an area with enormous potential for meeting the needs of the system and its users in the 21st century. …The challenge lies in delivering a system that fulfils that objective”.

As a result of this atmosphere, Alex believes that an online alternative has tremendous growth potential.

“Every year, some 1.75 million claims are filed with the civil courts in England and Wales, of which, approximately 270,000 are defended. We at Ajuve will offer a far better simpler and more convenient solution.”

Furthermore, it is not just current users of the court system who stand to benefit. The ambition behind Ajuve is to overcome many of the barriers associated with traditional dispute resolution, and instead provide a platform for people who would never even conceive of using the traditional disputes system.

“We think that the timing is right for a vibrant, new, user friendly solution to dispute resolution,” says Alex. “That solution, Ajuve, is based on eliminating all of the obstacles to justice that users of the court system might face. We have done this by eliminating unnecessary steps, keeping everything online and ensuring speed cost and justice are all paramount.

“We at Ajuve believe that online dispute resolution stands to take a very substantial market share of cases now handled by the courts and by traditional arbitration,” added Alex. “With this platform, small and medium sized businesses and individuals should have access to a system that they can understand, afford and trust. Resolving disputes should become an everyday part of the business process and one that they, the users, control.

“But it’s not just individuals and businesses that stand to benefit,” says Alex. “Additionally, other professionals, including lawyers, will be invited to partner with Ajuve’ s “Quick Look” system, which means users of the system can ask short questions of partnering professionals if they are not sure of the next best step, this will help the parties and may potentially lead to the partners obtaining new leads and work from participants.”

Revolutionising Resolution – The Rise of Online Dispute Resolution

Ajuve has therefore been designed from the ground up to be a one stop dispute resolution forum, allowing users to resolve their disputes entirely online using one of the aforementioned three component parts; the settlement calculator for the smallest or least complex disputes, facilitated online discussion (mediation), or binding online arbitration “Also, because everything is dealt with online, users of Ajuve will not have to sit around in cold waiting rooms in an obscure court building possibly miles from their home or office, waiting for their case to be heard by an overworked judge.”

Despite the many advantages of online dispute resolution, both Alex and Quentin Bargate believe that spreading the word about its advantages, and dealing with some defiant legal professionals has been their main challenge. As Alex says “Getting the message across is always a challenge. However, Ajuve will have a series of helpful educational videos to walk users through the process. While we may face some resistance from other lawyers to begin with, we think the majority will see its obvious benefits. Ajuve is actually a solution to their headache of dealing with unprofitable claims.”

Alongside the advancement of online dispute resolution, many law firms and educational institutions across the globe been testing cognitive systems that can aid and speed up the legal research and reviewing process. However, while cognitive systems also provide an alternative, Alex is adamant that the lack of people working behind these systems is what makes Ajuve a much better option. “Cognitive systems cannot answer the need for what might broadly be described as “justice”. Ajuve, on the other hand, can and does.

“Real people stand behind Ajuve,” says Alex. “The Arbitration module for example, employs experienced people (arbitrators) with the necessary skills. Claims are filtered to the right arbitrator based on the responses to simple questions when a claim is notified. Overlooking the entire system is a supervisory board which acts as a quality control monitor. Ajuve uses the power of the Arbitration Act 1996 and its own terms and conditions to deliver binding arbitration awards in no more than six or so weeks.

Remember: justice delayed is justice denied!”

Looking further down the road, Alex is confident that people will learn the value of Ajuve: “We have funding for the immediate future, but as the business scales up, with a potential international client base, then we may look at other sources of funding. As we progress, then scalability is key.”

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Spiders in the Web: The Risks of Online Crime to Legal Businesses

Company: Protective Intelligence Name: Vince Warrington Email: vince.warrington@ protectiveintelligence.co.uk Web Address: www.protectiveintelligence.co.uk Phone: +44 (0)1869 247814

Protective Intelligence provides consultancy and training on Cyber Security and Data Protection. We believe successful information security lies in the heart of an organisation, where everyone understands the importance of protecting data. For too long technology has driven the security agenda, but organisations who are successful in keeping their information safe recognise that without governance and training technology alone cannot prevent security breaches. We have long-standing experience, with previous clients ranging from corporate giants to SMEs and charities. We deliver high-quality consultancy on the strategies, policies and training that your organisation needs, as well as technical solutions such as Penetration Testing The rising threat of cybercrime has particular relevance to the legal industry. Whilst at first sight there appears to be little of value for criminals within a typical legal organisation – after all, aren’t these ‘cyber criminals’ just after credit card details? – the reality is much more worrying. Whilst a single credit card number will sell for under £2 on the illicit marketplaces located on the ‘Dark Web’, a person’s medical records will fetch upwards of £150. Criminals are attempting to obtain HR records of businesses, and we know that the reason behind many PPI and Accident Claim cold calls are because data has been stolen from insurance and legal companies, and even from the Police themselves. Could that deal you’ve been working on for months be compromised? It is alleged that the proposed takeover of China Huiyuan Juice Group by Coca-Cola in 2008 was subjected to a cyber-attack designed to allow the attackers to understand Coca-Cola’s negotiation strategy.

Data is a very valuable commodity, and cybercrime is an incredibly effective way of obtaining it. It’s a highly lucrative crime, with estimates putting the cyber black economy as high as $500bn per year, and rising. It’s more profitable than the international illegal drugs trade, far easier to commit and virtually untraceable. Details of upcoming criminal trials, information on potential mergers and acquisitions or sensitive business data of any kind could fetch over six figures, if not considerably more. We’ve seen businesses lose as much as $100m to cybercrime.

Targeted attacks are very difficult to spot and stop.

They could be launched from either outside or inside your business, and may take months (or even years) to come to fruition. These could range from standard attacks such as Ransomware or invoice mandate fraud – the cyber equivalent of the old ‘Smash and Grab’ robbery – to much more sophisticated attacks using Social Engineering techniques, backed up by technology and practices used by the Intelligence Agencies. Any organisation conducting business with Russian or Chinese interests will almost certainly be at risk of advanced attacks, which could even extend to ‘Honeypot Traps’.

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There is also the risk of untargeted attacks, which are as applicable to the Legal industry as they are to any organisation. Ransomware – where malicious code gets onto your computer networks and encrypts your data, rendering it inaccessible unless you pay a ‘fine’ – is on the increase. February 2016 alone has seen more Ransomware attacks against UK businesses than occurred in the first six months of 2015.

Cybercrime can have a wider impact than just the value of the data which has been compromised.

Could you be subject to litigation in the event of a breach? Will the regulators become involved and issue a fine? The incoming EU General Data Protection Regulation can levy a fine of up to €20m or four per cent of global revenue per breach. What about the damage to your brand or public image?

Could your share value be impacted by an attack?

These are all questions you need to consider when setting your information protection goals.

Cybercrime is a real threat. However, there are a number of steps organisations can take to reduce the risks; - Create and regularly review your information protection strategies and procedures, and work towards attaining a recognised security accreditation (such as ISO27001); - Make sure all within your business – from the Board to the cleaning staff – understand and adhere to the policies and procedures. Good security practice must come from the very top; - Identify where your confidential information is held – both digitally and physically – and regularly review who can gain access to it. Understand what the impact on your business would be if the integrity, availability or confidentiality of your data or systems were to be compromised; - Training staff in how to protect information is a vital tool. Technology alone cannot prevent security breaches; - Make sure any third parties you share confidential information with are aware of the need to protect your data. Make it a contractual obligation if necessary;

Spiders in the Web: The Risks of Online Crime to Legal Businesses

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Use secure technologies to share information, such as encryption, Virtual Private Networks or Private Cloud Storage, to help mitigate against staff using vulnerable methods; Create an Information Protection function within your business for dealing with all security issues.

Physical and cyber security are two sides of the same coin. Remember that Information Protection and IT Security are not the same thing; Most security breaches come from within, mainly due to accidental mishandling of confidential information. But be aware of malicious insiders as well – if Edward Snowden can steal the NSA’s secrets, then your staff can steal your data too; Consider taking out cyber liability insurance.

These typically come with a range of benefits, such as cyber forensics and public relations advice, as well as insuring against financial loss, regulatory fines and brand damage; Encourage a security culture and mind set throughout your business. As Ronald Regan stated during the SALT disarmament talks with the Soviets – ‘Trust, but verify’;

Having said all that, there’s really nothing special about cybercrime – it’s just another business risk you need to consider. As with all your risks, you need to assess the threat, impact and likelihood and come up with a mitigation plan. At the end, it really is as simple as that.

Cybercrime – how can businesses combat it?

Cybercrime isn’t going away anytime soon. The number of threat vectors, the ease of producing and distributing malware, and the lack of an effective global criminal investigation and legal prosecution are making cybercrime the method of choice for Serious Organised Crime. On a global scale, the issue will not get any better until there is a cohesive effort by the majority of world governments to tackle the issue – and that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

At a business level, cybercrime is going to become a de facto commercial risk – it is not going to go away, and the only course of action you are able to take is

to reduce the risk of a serious breach occurring. That will require affirmative action at the Board level, that an organisation will undertake to reduce the risk from the top down and encourage a ‘healthy suspicion’ as part of the organisational culture. Education and awareness are just as important tools in your arsenal as anti-virus and firewalls.

Once a business makes a decision to become as security-centric as possible, it needs to re-inforce the message with staff. There’s no point in buying a state-of-the-art burglar alarm system for your home if your teenage son is going to leave the front door wide open when he goes out at night. The consequences of failing to tackle the risk of cybercrime and data loss in your business are potentially quite severe.

Ransomware attacks could prevent you from accessing your files and systems, forcing you to restore from backup (you do check that your backups work, don’t you?) which could take days. A serious security breach could land you with a hefty fine from a regulator, or force your CEO to undertake an embarrassing public apology, as recently happened to TalkTalk. There’s increasing evidence that consumers and other businesses will perceive your company in a very negative light in the event of an attack, especially if confidential data is lost or stolen, with a recent survey showing that 86% of UK procurement managers would axe an SME for suffering a cyber breach. In extreme cases, it’s not inconceivable that a cyber-attack could result in a business being forced into bankruptcy or administration.

The challenges for Protective Intelligence in 2016 Our challenge is to get organisations to understand that cyber security is not simply an ‘IT problem’. We see businesses increasingly taking cyber security on-board as an essential, but they then fail to make security an overall responsibility for everyone within the structure. There’s a sense that many organisations see cyber security as a necessary evil, and want nothing to do with it on an operational and cultural level. We try to emphasise that IT Security can only provide the tools to help protect the business, but the wider issue revolves around a willingness to embrace the idea of security. We need to move people away from thinking this is a technology problem, to understanding that instead it’s a people problem.

Even in 2016, it’s difficult to get data protection onto the corporate agenda. Whilst things are generally moving in the right direction there’s still a perception at C Level that their company is somehow immune to the risk, or already has all the protection it needs.

Convincing Boards to spend on cyber security, especially when budgets are still under pressure, is a difficult job – it’s hard to prove a Return on Investment for cyber security. There’s a feeling that, even when a business has a Chief Information Security Officer on board, security is still seen as a ‘techie’ problem and ranks beneath areas such as finance, sales and marketing in the grand scheme.

The challenges for industry in 2016 We’re facing a critical shortage in skilled cyber security professionals globally. The demand for these key resources is only going to rise in the coming years, and we may well see businesses operating with completely inadequate protections simply because they cannot find the appropriate skill set. This, combined with the increasing numbers of attacks, has the capability to overwhelm the available resource base.

There’s also the risk of ‘Breach Fatigue’, where companies and individuals become inured to the danger of cybercrime and see the risk of an attack as inevitable as more and more reports come out in the media. For organisations, there’s the risk that cyber liability insurance is seen as a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card and do little more than the minimum required to protect their data.

Finally, there’s the risk of market and product saturation.

As the demand increases, there’s potential for investors to jump in looking for a quick win and overloading the market with too many products, as with the Anti-Virus industry where there are well over 100 mainstream products available on the market to customers.

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Ones to Watch in IP, 2016

Company: ELLA CHEONG LAW OFFICE Name: ELLA CHEONG JP Email: ellacheong@ ellacheonglaw.com Web: www.ellacheonglaw.com Address: Unit 204, 2/F, Bonham Trade Centre, 50 Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Phone: +852 2810 7400

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ELLA CHEONG is recognized as one of the best intellectual property (“IP”) lawyers in Asia, and considered by many as a pioneer in IP. She is a solicitor in Hong Kong, on the Roll of Honour of the Law Society of Hong Kong, also qualified to practise in UK, Singapore and Australia. Ella Cheong was appointed a Justice of Peace by the HK Government, a most befitting tribute to her dedication to the development and social-conscience of Hong Kong.

In addition, Ella is recognized by international organizations - Member of Honour of FICPI and AIPPI, and received INTA’s President’s Award and APAA’s Enduring Award, and the Professional and Entrepreneurial Award in HK. ELLA CHEONG Law Office was founded in HONG KONG by Ella, and through our close working relationships with leading lawyers in other countries, the law firm is able to assist clients across all countries of the world. Although most people know and identify this firm as an IP boutique firm, however, we have recently gone through some changes.

Our firm is now concentrating on all legal issues, especially enforcement of IPRs and commercialrelated IP issues (e.g. preparing of or reviewing agreements ensuring adequate protection for IPRs in agreements for licensing, franchising, employment, manufacturing, agency and distributorships), as well as litigious issues (including cancellations and oppositions of TMs) before the Courts and the IP Registries in HK and China. With addition of new lawyers, our legal expertise has now been expanded to include commercial and corporate issues, including formation of joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, contractual disputes, dispute resolution; information technology; intellectual property; insurance; labour and employment; litigation and advocacy; personal injuries; technology transfer and Wills and estate planning. Our practices are complemented by experience across a wide range of industries, with a strategic focus on information and technology.

We believe with our distinctive approach and with a thorough understanding of our clients’ underlying objectives and our focus on formulating strategic and pro-active solutions, together with our perseverance and passion, all our firms will continue to be recognized by others for our achievements. Ella has been so recognised by the International Trade Council and is one of its members. In addition, both firms, as well as Ella Cheong personally, have been nominated and voted as being amongst the top firms/ professionals in the region throughout the years, with the most recent awards being:

ELLA CHEONG LLC, a SINGAPORE law firm, with support office in MALAYSIA of ELLA CHEONG IP Services Sdn Bhd, was also founded by Ella Cheong, and marks Ella’s continued participation in the Asian legal fraternity since the initial establishment of this practice was at the invitation of the Singapore Government. As with the HK office, Ella Cheong LLC is a law firm that handles all legal issues but also specializes in intellectual property, including prosecution of Patents, Trade Marks and Designs (in this respect unlike the HK office), in all countries of the world, but more specifically in each of the 10 ASEAN countries (i.e. Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Brunei). Ella Cheong LLC is an active member of the Franchising and Licensing Association, and their professionals are experienced in delivering effective legal solutions to a wide range of set-ups, including individuals, small businesses and large corporations alike, across a broad spectrum of industries.

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ACQ Global Awards 2015 – our associated office of Ella Cheong (Hong Kong & Beijing) received the highest volume of nominations as the IP Law firm of the year; Chambers Asia-Pacific 2016 – our HK Law firm is highly recommended as a leading law firm in China; Asia IP Experts 2015 – Ella was nominated

by Asia IP Experts as a leading lawyer for enforcement of trademark and patents Managing Intellectual Property 2015 – Ella was listed as IP Star Five Star Law – Ella was nominated as the leading Copyright Law Specialist in Hong Kong 2015 Corporate Intl Magazine Legal Award – Ella was chosen as IP Protection Lawyer of the Year for Hong Kong Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2015 – “Name partner Ella of our associated office of Ella Cheong (Hong Kong & Beijing) is ‘particularly qualified’, having an extensive track record of protecting and enforcing all types of IP rights across the Asia Pacific region” 2015 Legal Awards – our HK Law firm was awarded best IP Law firm in Hong Kong Who’s Who Legal: Trademark 2015 – our HK Law firm was voted as the Lawyer for Franchise 2015 2016 Intellectual Property Awards - Best for IP Strategy & Analysis 2016 Asia Pacific Euro money’s Expert Guides Trade Marks 2016 The World’s Leading Practitioners Chosen by the Peers – Ella was voted as a leading practitioner DealMakers Law Awards 2014 - Trademarks Law Firm of the Year - Singapore (Trademark)

Ones to Watch in IP, 2016

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Getting the Deal Through 2016 – Ella Cheong LLC was recommended as a National Expert World Trademark Review (2016 WTR1000) – Ella Cheong LLC was ranked “Silver” in the field of IP prosecution and strategy

Our firms are dedicated to serving the legal needs of local and international businesses, with our professionals able to provide the depth and breadth of expertise necessary to solve complex business challenges, with various members of our staff being able to communicate in English, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil, thus enhancing and easing clients’ experience.

Acquisition International - April 2016 27

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Africa on the Rise Name: Mrs. UWIMANA Gisèle, M.ABAYO LAW FIRM Email: kagisele@yahoo.fr Web: www.m-abayolawfirm.com Address: P.O. Box 4170 Kigali-Rwanda Airport Avenue, Remera, Jean RWABAHIZI Building, 1st floor, Ruwanda Phone: 00250 788 300 535

Mrs. UWIMANA Gisèle is a holder of Master’s Degree in Law (LLM) and Bachelor’s Degree in Law (LLB) and active collaborator of the Law Firm as she joined Rwanda Bar Association in 2011. Before joining the Law Firm, Gisele UWIMANA worked under different legal capacities including being the responsible in Charge of Access to Justice Bureau project in Karongi District, Registrar at the High Court and Supreme Court of Rwanda.

UWIMANA Gisèle is part of M. ABAYO LAW FIRM, based in Kigali, Rwanda. They are an established law firm with a long and successful track record of offering high quality services to businesses entities, NGOs and individuals. Its location makes easy the reach of courts and other law institutions like the companies registrar, the intellectual property registrar, the national land center, the supreme court, the national public prosecution authority, the ministry of justice, the parliament, different notary offices, and so on.

We are well known not only in Rwanda but also in the whole East African region and we are capable and ready to give you a legal service of high quality wherever you are and whatever matter. With regard to our experience and expertise, we deliver to you a good quality service that you would expect from a successful law firm and we aim at: • Providing excellent services to all of our clients; • Quick and efficient understanding of our clients’ needs and react accordingly; • To act with cost effectiveness while providing legal services; • Practicing law with good understanding, values and equity.

Above all, we target at providing high-quality service standards with a professional attitude, at a reasonable cost. Their wide-ranging services include, but are not limited to the following: TAX ISSUES We handle all legal taxation matters of individuals, large & small businesses and companies including helping our clients in the process of registration before tax authorities, declaration of due taxes, legal advice and assistance/representation before courts or any other institution for tax related cases.

COMMERCIAL & PROPERTY LAW Recognised as one of the commercial law best performer, M. ABAYO Law Firm offers a number of legal services relating to commercial transactions including contract negotiation and elaboration. We also offer property law services including property acquisition, registration and transfer. Investors coming across the world dedicate our services to their quick establishment in Rwanda. Thanks to our department dealing with commercial and investment matters.

COMPANY LAW ISSUES M. ABAYO LAW FIRM has a specialised department that deals with incorporations companies as well as registration of any other business in Rwanda, both for 28 Acquisition International - April 2016

local and overseas investors. The specialisation in this matter is the effectiveness and efficiency of our services in which we sometimes act electronically (e - signature) to speedy the cases. We also prepare legal documents including but not limited to the memorandum of incorporation and articles of association for our clients.

We also provide different legal services to corporate clients on all aspects of their businesses and companies including but not limited to merger and acquisition, corporate structuring, corporate licensing, corporate management, shareholding as well as other regulatory and financial and legal issues. We assist our clients to the daily management of contracts with the personnel and other stakeholders and represent them before courts for any case against them.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY We have experienced department that deals with intellectual property issues. This department provides different legal services of high quality relating to the registration of intellectual property rights like trademarks, trade names, patents, industrial designs, and so on. This department has gained a good reputation for its standby and readiness mechanisms to enforce and protect intellectual property rights such as copyrights protection through contentious and noncontentious procedures.

This department also provides legal services to our clients relating to the acquisition of intellectual property rights, licenses and transfer of technology joint ventures, supply and distribution agreements as well as providing legal services with regard to introduction of products to the market such as branding, advertising and product information leaflets. We also assist/ represent our clients where their intellectual property rights are infringed.

BANKING AND CORPORATE FINANCE We provide a wide range of legal services in the field of banking and finance through innovative and practical legal advices and actions like the preparation and registration of securities, corporate and project finance transactions, syndications and so on.

CIVIL LITIGATION We have expertise in dealing with contractual quasicontractual, family matters like marriage related litigations, matrimonial regimes, divorce, adoption, civil status documents, donations, successions, etc. We have a team who specialise in family mediation helping different family members to have an understanding before cases go out for courts. We focus to reunite

Africa on the Rise

families and have their disputes resolved in a win-win situation to ensure that family relationships survive.

LEGAL DUE DILIGENCE AND LEGAL AUDIT As result of our legal research on behalf of clients, our clients appreciate the legal information we provide about their potential or existing stakeholders, this helping them to take informed decisions. We also conduct the legal audit for the clients own legal and contractual compliance.

RECEIVERSHIP AND INSOLVENCY ADMINISTRATION We have a department dealing with the insolvency administration as approved by the commercial courts and dealing with mortgages issues like the mortgage administration until the auctioning of the mortgage or any other security interest property as well as their collaterals.

CLIENT BASE Finally, they have a wide range of clients, who are primarily: • Local and international business entities; • Industrialists and manufacturers; • Service agencies like transport agencies and hoteliers; • Individuals; • Government entities; • Non-Government Organisations and • Religious organisations.

Virunga Vulkane an der Grenze zu Ruanda

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France: On the Rise 1604JC54

France: On the Rise MSA Law was founded in 2013 and handles mergers and acquisitions (M&A), private equity, corporate governance, commercial litigation and restructuring matters. We handle the most complex and challenging transactions and litigation for our clients.

The current economic climate in France is not very good, but some industries are doing very well including the media and high-tech sectors, but unfortunately the political actions necessary to bring France back on track have not yet been taken.

Company: MSA Law Name: Michael Assouline Email: michael.assouline@ msa-law.net Web: www.msa-law.net Address: 305 A, avenue du Prado, 13008 Marseille, France Phone: +33 (0)9 64 13 64 35

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Concerning the future, many companies including those in the retail industries and the mass market who have been hugely affected since the financial crisis of 2008- are now reaching the limit of their resilience to the challenges in the economy, so we should therefore see an increase in distressed mergers and acquisitions practices over the next few months and years.

Also, we see that many sectors are booming, such as the med-tech, bio-tech and high-tech sectors and private equity firms certainly have a lot of cash now.

We are seeing that the private equity firms will fight to get the best companies and the valuation will get higher and higher in this market here.

We always handle out client’s transactions with the following principles in mind, firstly understanding the client business, technical excellence and also working in and under international standards.

Always being available for clients, exceeding their expectations and maintaining the highest standards are important for MSA Law. 2015 has been a tremendous year for MSA Law. For example, we have advised on a â‚Ź70 million deal, and the creation of one of the first automotive expertise group which has implied the mergers of 14 companies in the south of France. We have also advised a major French company in its joint-venture with an American company.

We try to bring the transaction to closing every time it is in the interests of our clients. We give our clients the expertise of a large law firm and they have the advantages of a boutique firm in terms of efficiency and flexibility. Finally, we will continue to work hard to deliver the best possible value services for our clients.

Latin America Series: Guyana 1511AC16 1604BW48

De Caires Fitzpatrick and Karran Company: De Caires Fitzpatrick and Karran Name: Melinda Janki Email: mmjanki@yahoo.co.uk or dfklaw2@gmail.com Address: 79B Cowan Street, Georgetown, Guyana Telephone: +592 2261126; +592 226 0250; UK +440759615444

Latin America Series: Guyana De Caires Fitzpatrick and Karran, one of the most prestigious law firms in Guyana, specialises in corporate/commercial work including securities and land issues. Melinda Janki from the firm talks us through how they have reached the top of the sector within this dynamic region.

De Caires Fitzpatrick and Karran are the leading utilities lawyer acting for the national electricity company as well as the main telecommunications provider. We are also the leading law firm in the oil and mining sector. We have a solid client base in banking and insurance, aviation, forestry and trusts.

Our region, Guyana, provides new opportunities for investment in the oil sector whether this is upstream, midstream or downstream as well as in the support industries. At the same time Guyana is pursuing a low carbon development strategy which provides significant opportunities for carbon offset schemes, renewable energy and high-value end products. There is also significant scope for ethical investment in indigenous products and I have extensive experience of working with the Amerindian communities here.

Despite current low prices for commodities, mineral exploration and production are still key drivers of economic growth in Guyana. The firm acts for a significant part of the local gold mining sector which

is currently benefitting from increased investment and better performance.

We also have a long standing relationship with the oil sector and have acted for oil companies here in Guyana. I previously worked in-house for British Petroleum in their headquarters in London and subsequently provided advice to the Baku-TblisiCeyhan Pipeline Consortium as well as the South Caucasus Pipeline. We have a unique combination of experience, skills and knowledge which enable us as a firm to provide a complete service to any client wishing to set up and run a business in Guyana. We provide a swift business start-up service, and we are experts at putting together the most appropriate investment vehicle, dealing with the acquisition of land and other assets, advising on security, and enabling investors to navigate successfully through the regulatory maze.

Looking to the future, the firm is poised to grow with the economy and we expect to expand in the Caribbean through our relationships with other lawyers.

Acquisition International - April 2016 31

LA150107

Best for Employment Visa Advice - Colorado Maria Lourdes Rodriguez, Esq. started Rodriguez Law Firm in 2005 after she realised the lack of trustworthy immigration lawyer advice in the Colorado region. Maria Rodriguez set effective standards to help the underprivileged and unprotected immigrant community who look to the United States for an opportunity of the American Dream. “For many of our clients, the United States means survival for oneself and for their family” Maria Lourdes Rodriguez comments.

Company: Rodriguez Law Firm Email: lourdes@rodlawfirm.com Web: www.rodlawfirm.com Address: 6990 W 38th Ave, Suite #104, Denver, CO 80033, USA Telephone: 001 303 477 2422

Rodriguez Law Firm was founded in 2005 to serve and protect the rights of immigrants and help professionals abroad make new homes in the United States. Throughout the years they have represented corporations and individuals alike in their immigration needs with a high rate of success. We spoke to them to get their insight and views on the highly complicated world of immigration law.

We are dynamic, we are force for good, and we are assertive, creative and adaptive in meeting our client’s needs. We relish achieving success when other immigration practitioners have dismissed cases as being impossible.

Our unparalleled success rate – demonstrated in the complicated and highly technical legal specialty that is immigration law – manifests our skill and experience in employment-based immigrant visas, as well as in obtaining waivers of inadmissibility in extremely difficult cases. We also obtain unequalled results in family-based petitions, removal defense, employment based immigrant visas, by finding the best immigration alternatives for each and every case. Humanitarian and asylum practice are special areas of success, we are able to handle any other immigration matter, regardless if its complexity.

Immigration law is greatly influenced by politics, and that is why we take an activist approach. The greatest challenge is that immigration policy is antiquated, and not in pace with the United States; a land of immigrants, and the most ethnically diverse country in the world. In addition, changes in immigration law are almost non-existent in a highly hierarchical and bureaucratic government, uninterested in structural procedures and standards.

Because of stricter and ever changing immigration case law and policy, we continually train our staff and attorneys, and educate them through conferences and seminars, assisting them to find the best strategies, and the most efficient methods so that our services are also affordable. It is essential for us to follow trends in immigration demographics that would enable us to shape our services to meet client’s needs.

We believe that global immigration is essential to the growth and prosperity of every country – including

32 Acquisition International - April 2016

the United States: This is the bedrock of our professional philosophy. The electoral year of 2016, as we predicted, will stimulate controversy and needed discussion of immigration policy. Immigration issues will play a critical part in deciding who will become President of the United States in 2017. We are optimistic and believe that the United States Supreme Court will affirm the 2014 Executive Action of President Obama, thereby removing the impasse to immigration reform.

We are a force in building momentum for change in immigration law and policy that would create a more humane society, and recognize the inherent human rights of immigrants. Additionally, our unique ability of having been exposed to different business cultures, here and abroad afford us the ability to extend and fortify those bridges for the full benefit of our corporate clients in accessing the best and brightest human talent to fit their business needs.

We strive to create diversity within our community.

We take on the challenges of real life issues and develop strategies that work. We strongly believe that our expertise, dedication, and discipline, is what has made us leaders within our immigration community.

Our goal is not simply to defend through litigation, it’s to educate our people, our neighbors, and our society in the social movement that is immigration.

Capability is our hallmark. As immigrants ourselves, we value the trust placed on us by our clients, and the critical importance of the ethical practice of law, as well as the importance of following case status and deadlines in tracking the progress of a case through successful resolution. We provide both private and corporate clients with up-to-date information on changes in the law that could affect them negatively; or, in the alternative, provide unexpected advantages to our clients. The quality of service we provide is only possible because of our depth of experience and comprehensive knowledge of substantive immigration law and international law.

Investment and immigration law are two very different fields and although they may not seem to coexist, they do. Immigration is an investment into quality of life, and people are the most important investment of any Corporation. Our expertise is of paramount importance in the area of employment-based immigration where the dangers of non-compliance

Best for Employment Visa Advice - Colorado

can be catastrophic. Our employment-based clients value the advice and assistance we provide for them to ensure positive results, and be in compliance with Federal immigration laws.

We are very optimistic about the future of our firm, and welcome challenges as they present us with opportunities for growth and success. We presently are expanding our services to include professional visas for nurses and medical personnel, including professionals in the oil and gas industry at all levels.

Of particular mention, we are very excited to develop a sophisticated one-of-a-kind match-making program that will revolutionize the fiancĂŠe visa program forever. At the core of everything that we have planned is community outreach through education and supporting social movements. We strongly believe that investing in education is investing in a better future for our new citizens. Excellence is our goal. We ensure that our clients obtain the best outcome and receive real value for their investments of time, money and trust. Excellence is achieved every day. We never rest. Professionalism is what we stand for. Professionals is who we are.

Acquisition International - April 2016 33

1604EA71

Company: Psychologica LTD Name: Dr Phil Bardzil Email: info@psychologica.co.uk Web: www.psychologica.co.uk Address: 9-10 Bolton Street, Ramsbottom, Bury, Lancs, BL0 9HX Telephone: +44 0161 883 2879

Executive Coaching – the Secret of Sustained Success Executive Coaching helps inspire leaders to transform themselves and their people to improve business results and performance, by developing skills, confidence and focus. One of the most effective techniques available for development, its use has increased dramatically over the past decade. No longer seen as an executive perk it is becoming a crucial area of challenge and support, adding a clear positive return on investment. However, as with any rapidly growing industry, the ‘coaching business’ can offer variable quality and results. There is no ‘one size fits all’ and it is important to get the chemistry right, regarding client needs and the coaching style used. Dr Phil Bardzil is a chartered business psychologist and experienced coach of 20 years. He explains how executive coaching can help leaders to develop an edge: building on strengths and exerting a positive influence on their teams and wider organizational effectiveness.

The first ‘secret of sustained success’, in executive coaching, is to establish clear outcomes of importance to work towards. The Psychologica Model™ has been developed from extensive research into leadership behaviours and their direct impact on organizational climate and, indirectly, on customer service experiences. This provides a coaching framework to identify where leaders can best align their talents, to fulfill both personal and organizational objectives. The most effective leaders establish a balance between strategic thinking (blue) and ‘real world’ activities (red), enabled by engagement with key partners and stakeholders (yellow). Effective coaches help to integrate these key elements, through enhancing positive behaviors: communication skills (green); organizational skills (purple) and emotional management (orange). Resulting from European Union funded research in a range of

sectors, these success factors emerged as crucial to leaders, staff and customers alike. Use of a validated model allows executive coaching at the individual level to be integrated successfully with wider team and organizational development outcomes.

Anyone can call themselves a ‘coach’ so it is important to check on professional credibility, through established qualifications or affiliations to respected associations. A second ‘secret of sustained success’ is to ensure professional credentials and, ideally, competence in the use of psychometric instruments. Coaching effectiveness can be enhanced if supported by use of personality measures or 360° Analysis (where colleagues provide assessments of performance, using on-line surveys). The Psychologica Model™ forms a basis for a range of diagnostic tools and related coaching aids which are available to support coaching relationships. It has proven links to a number of established development approaches, so can complement existing HR practices.

Executive roles demand a wide range of skills and abilities. Few individuals excel in all areas but coaching can be used to balance performance and help identify the appropriate leadership skills to adopt under different circumstances.

For example, the ‘blue zone’, of intellectual capabilities, includes: developing vision; setting strategy; and managing complexity. The ‘red zone’, of tangible outcomes, includes: crisis management; motivation; change management and performance focus. Clearly, there is some

34 Acquisition International - April 2016

Executive Coaching – the Secret of Sustained Success

overlap between coaching and management consultancy in some of these areas. Consultancy tends to focus on structural and transactional tasks, while coaching usually emphasises transformational change – creating a ‘safe space’ for leaders to reflect on personal issues, with the benefit of immediate and honest feedback. Business is largely about people and the ‘yellow zone’, of emotional intelligence, is crucial to developing leadership success.

This includes demonstrating self-confidence in: public speaking; challenging effectively; managing relationships; exerting influence; working collaboratively; adapting to change; and managing stress. Development in each of the three core ‘zones’ requires a different approach and the third ‘secret to success’ is to find a coach who can flex their style appropriately, according to client needs.

Dr Phil Bardzil has a PhD in Organizational Psychology. He has experience of leadership, as MD of a multi-national subsidiary, and also as director of a research centre in Manchester Business School (University of Manchester), where he developed the Psychologica Model™.

Phil has written a number of academic papers and presented at numerous international

conferences. Psychologica Ltd is based in the UK and works with organizations in all sectors. Webbased technologies allow executive coaching to take place internationally and coaching products are available from regional distributors. www.psychologica.co.uk

Research shows clearly that ‘strengths based’ approaches, where coaches help clients to build on existing attributes, provide a better return on investment than focusing only on areas of under-performance. While there is a need to be honest and realistic, dwelling on negatives can be a waste of resources and can undermine self-confidence. Executive coaches are not just for ‘fixing people’ but can also ‘make good better’. A fourth consideration is to choose a coach who practices positive psychology and can help individuals use strengths and preferences to enhance potential in areas of challenge. The aim is to stretch clients and shift them out of comfort zones, but to do so with empathy and support, leaving them in a better place. Often this is through re-framing issues and facilitating fresh insights.

Executive coaching continues to grow globally.

We see increasing interest from the financial sector which, despite its relative size and economic importance, is actually vulnerable.

Most banks are overleveraged, have incentives which reinforce counter-productive behaviours, are at risk from new technologies, and have failed to regain the trust of customers. Organizations which develop authentic values-led leadership will have a clear advantage over competitors.

Executive coaching is key to achieving this.

Acquisition International - April 2016 35

Best Asian Bond Fund: S.E.A Asian High Yield Bond IF16059

Best Asian Bond Fund: S.E.A Asian High Yield Bond S.E.A. Asset Management is a privately owned boutique fund manager based in Singapore. We spoke to Alexander Zeeh, CEO of S.E.A Asset Management, to find out more about their company and their highly innovative S.E.A Asian High Yield Bond.

Company: S.E.A. Asset Management Pte Ltd Name: Alexander Zeeh Email: alexander.zeeh@ seagroup.com.sg Web: www.seagroup.com.sg Address: 230 Orchard Road, #10-232 Faber House, Singapore 238854 Telephone: (65) 6732 4864

Founded in 2007, our clients are primarily European UHNW individuals who want to get exposure to regional Asian equities and corporate bonds in order to participate in Asian economic growth via earnings, dividends and interest. With our office located in Singapore, we have a unique advantage in gaining access to identify regional investment opportunities for our investors.

In 2015, we initiated S.E.A. Funds SICAV in Luxembourg. Under this UCITS compliant umbrella fund, we manage the S.E.A. Asian Equity Discovery Fund and the S.E.A. Asian High Yield Bond Fund.

Our funds are not benchmark driven, and we tend to invest more in midcap stocks to concentrate on regional earnings growth as well as lesser known issuers whose credit worthiness we strongly believe in. These securities tend to be less liquid than the broader market so our portfolios tend to be more diversified than those of peers who need to take larger bets to outperform their benchmark indices. As such, our strategy yields higher returns coupled with lower volatility hence delivering superior risk/reward over time.

In our industry, boutique fund managers and independent asset managers like ourselves still represent a relatively small part of the Asian market.

We operate in a fragmented but fast growing niche.

With an increasingly maturing market, we will gain more visibility and recognition as local player and attract a larger share of investors amid established market entrants from overseas.

Another feature of our industry is that it is constantly evolving. From our experience, the companies that do not adopt intelligently to compliance requirements imposed by new regulation in the sector will soon realise that internal compliance can become a bottleneck for new business development. As such, the costs of an ineffective front held back by counterproductive business policies can have serious negative impact on a companies’ profitability, and possibly its survival. With this in mind, those players who decentralise compliance and enable it to become a support function for a fund manager’s sales force will have the best chances.

Despite the many changes in our industry, our size as a small and flexible unit means that the broader industry trends don’t impact us as much as they perhaps impact large multinational fund houses.

Furthermore, we partner with global firms in fields such as legal and compliance or corporate access and fund administration to always be on the cutting edge of know-how available to keep ahead of the game.

Moreover, we have attractive niche products attractive in a low interest rate environment. Most of our competitors’ products are not unconstrained and limited by their respective benchmark limitations.

They must rely on brand and sales force to distribute their products which also pushes up costs. In addition, our small size makes us more flexible and less exposed to regulatory burdens, and our decision making process concerning investments is uncomplicated and very fast.

In terms of our approach towards client service, we like to see clients and staff as our partners. If a true partnership exists between the stake holders, they all can mutually benefit, and only then the relationship will grow and prosper.

Looking further into 2016 and beyond, we are very confident that our company will continue to grow and prosper. Now with our funds registered for distribution in Singapore we will target more Asian investors and perhaps expand into Hong Kong as well.

36 Acquisition International - April 2016

Best for Litigation Support Services - France DR160053

Best for Litigation Support Services - France As the fifth largest auditing and advisory network, BDO’s core business clients are mid-sized companies, with their French team offering their expertise to higher listed companies too. We spoke to Michel Leger, President of BDO France, to find out more.

Name: Michel Leger Company: BDO France Web: www.bdo.fr/en

At our firm, the overall mission is to build a high competency, high quality business in everything we do. In terms of our expertise in dispute resolution, we have undergone several projects last year but we unfortunately have to keep them confidential in order to protect our clients’ privacy. We are particularly satisfied with one complex international and sensitive case that lasted for years and ended in 2015. This case involved a number of hard and difficult issues, and we were delighted to finally achieve a result.

That particular case is a good example of how we always go the extra mile for our clients. BDO’s motto is “exceptional client service”, and although this may seem obvious, it actually takes a lot effort to always be proactive, to listen to the client, to provide new ideas, to give them peace of mind, as well as being reactive and responsive to their demands. Above all, I’m convinced the most important thing is to develop and maintain strong relationships with your clients.

deadlines are making projects very intense, and I also see the need for new profiles to help us analyse data and take fully into account the technological dimension. Nonetheless, France is one of the major economies in the world, and so with many challenges comes a lot of exciting opportunities too. The entire world is talking about digital and big data, and the dispute resolution field is no exception. As a result, we are heavily working on this precise subject.

As for the award, I’m particularly proud that BDO is recognised as a major actor in the dispute resolution field. In our office in France, we have a team that encompasses a wide range of disciplines such as finance, IT, data analysis and forensics, and we have all worked extremely hard on developing this activity and bring solutions to our clients. With this recognition, we can showcase our talents and skills and hopefully add to our client base.

It is these values that underpin everything we do, and is our main focus when adding new members to our team. The most important this is to hire people who fit your values, but at the same time add their own qualities too. This is simply just smart people who are easy to get along with, and of course, people who are dedicated to serving clients.

From our experience, our industry can be quite demanding and we constantly keep up to date with any emerging trends or development. For instance, complexity, increased regulation and constraint

Acquisition International - April 2016 37

1604EG68

brussels@philippelaw.eu

www.philippelaw.eu

Best Independent Investment Management Firm - Canada IF16058

Best Independent Investment Management Firm - Canada Matco Financial Inc. is an independent, privately-owned investment management firm, founded in 2006 to manage the investments of HNW families, trusts, endowments, Not-for-profit, business owners, and foundations.

Company: Matco Financial Inc. Name: Jason N. Vincent, PFP, TEP President & Chief Operating Officer Email: jvincent@matcofinancial.ca Web: www.matcofinancialinc.com Address: 400, 407 - 8 Avenue S.W. Calgary, Alberta T2P 1E5 Telephone: +1 877 539 5743

Jeff Whyte / Shutterstock.com

Matco Financial was originally founded in 2006 to manage and service seven family offices, and today their investment focus is lower volatility income & equity income producing Canadian securities and North American energy stocks. Their mission is to provide well-diversified investment solutions that are designed to protect capital, exhibit lower volatility, produce income, and achieve long-term growth, without exposing their clients to unnecessary or excessive risk.

Discretionary Investment Counselling & Asset Management They provide low fee discretionary investment counselling & asset management for their clients.

Discretionary investment counselling & asset management is the delegation of daily management of an investment portfolio within the parameters previously established between the investment manager and the client. This frees clients from the need to make day-to-day decisions on such matters as security selection and asset mix.

To provide independent investment counselling and discretionary asset management, Matco maintains a high standard and unique education, training, and industry licensing requirement. Many of their investment professionals have either their Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation, or Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation which demonstrates Matco Financial’s tireless commitment to stewards of client capital.

While the area of expertise the company offer is primarily Asset Management (Canadian equity), to ensure that Matco Financial stands out from the competition for services to their clients, performance, people and price are key factors explains Jason N. Vincent, PFP, TEP President & Chief Operating Officer of Matco Financial Inc. in a short interview.

How are you serving the needs of individual investors, planners, advisors, trusts, corporations, and not-forprofit organisations?

Through expertise. We are not generalists‌. and thus we believe by offering a focused and concentrated investment platform we can better serve the needs of our clients. We also believe through our experience we can stabilise client emotion and take advantage of the highly volatile markets.

What role do your staff play in the successes of your firm?

Our staff are our assets. We are a service business that delivers world class Asset Management through a defined and repeatable process that is anchored by our People What challenges does your company and / or industry face in 2016 and beyond?

Commoditisation of the industry. Perception growing that active managers don’t add value as evidenced by the proliferation of passively managed Index funds. It is our opinion that this is the exact period (markets in a Neutral to Negative stance) where active managers excel.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Our business model is designed to deliver world class investment management services at very competitive pricing.

Acquisition International - April 2016 39

IF16056

Company: ICICI Prudential AMC Name: Adil Bakhshi Email: corporate_communications @icicipruamc.com Web: www.icicipruamc.com Address: OneBKC, A-Wing, 13th Floor, Bandra Kurla Complex Telephone: (+91 22) 66470274

Best Fund House - 2016 & Best Dynamic Asset Allocation/Volatility Fund (Since Inception): ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund (IPBAF) ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd. is India’s largest asset management company, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between savings and investments and creating long term wealth for investors through a range of simple and relevant investment solutions. We spoke to them to find out more about how their unique strategy achieves this.

The company is a joint venture between ICICI Bank, a well-known and trusted name in financial services in India and Prudential Plc, one of the UK’s largest players in the financial services sectors. Apart from asset management, they also provide portfolio management services for investors across the country, along with international advisory mandates for clients across international markets in asset classes like debt, equity and real estate.

Throughout the years, they have developed a product suite to cater for clients across a range of different categories. On the retail side, a general tendency of Indian investors is to invest in equity when the markets are surging high, while pulling out money when the markets are underperforming- which may not necessarily lead to the best investment experience.

Therefore, their product suite offers a productICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund -which endeavours to offer lower volatility and tax efficiency.

The fund is structured to invest in equities when markets are cheap and book profits when markets are rising, which is the opposite of what retail investors tend to do; thus aiming to minimise risk and provide reasonable long term returns.

As a company working in a highly competitive industry, there are a number of aspects behind how they have forged a position of pre-eminence in the Indian mutual fund industry. Firstly, they provide a diverse range of services all within the same fund house. In the Indian MF industry, we often see products being without clear positioning or distinction, whereas ICICI Prudential AMC has ensured sharply focused products with every fund giving a different slice of market to the investor.

Alongside this attribute, IPAMC is driven by Investorcentricity and Investment-centricity. The company’s core objective has been to keep investors’ interest at the helm by offering investors a product suite that caters to their every possible need and creating significant value for them by managing money well.

While people are the essence of this organisation, fund management is not about having star fund managers but rather strong processes in place. The fund house has clearly defined internal processes on every aspect of fund management, which includes cash calls, portfolio construction, stock selection, risk mitigation, portfolio review and monitoring.

In terms of culture, they have built diversity within the fund house by offering variety of investment strategies, including value/contrarian, growth at reasonable price (GARP) and growth, consciously aligning investing styles of different fund managers with the respective fund objectives.

40 Acquisition International - April 2016

Best Fund House - 2016 & Best Dynamic Asset Allocation/Volatility Fund (Since Inception): ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund (IPBAF)

In fact, they have a culture where fund managers are encouraged to develop their individual styles but at all times these have to be practised within the overall investment framework. The fund managers have been asked to follow the fund’s objective to the hilt and hence no style drift is allowed beyond the boundaries of the fund’s mandate.

In this environment, products are mapped to people with certain style strengths. The team has three key portfolio managers: • Sankaran Naren | Contrarian & value oriented.

• Manish Gunwani | Focus on management and numbers.

• Mrinal Singh | Less concentration, diverse portfolio, capability to pick value stocks.

In total, the investment team comprises 33 professionals, led by senior professionals in equity, fixed income and real estate.

Investments function is led by S Naren, CIO, having 24 years of rich experience in broking, project finance, investment banking and fund management. Naren has built a fundamentally strong investment team that follows a disciplined investment approach which would combine global and regional considerations with a local focus. Additionally, fund managers are supported by in- house teams providing market leading research, risk management and dealing capabilities.

As with any company working in today’s fast-paced world, they are using all of the recent advances in technology to improve and enhance the services that they provide. They engage with advisors through IPRU Touch, a mobile application created to help financial advisors to transact on behalf of investors.

Integration of key processes, minimisation of paper work, optimal content experience and streamlining of the sales activities are some of the many goals they aim to achieve for distributor community through IPRU Touch.

Managing money is a huge responsibility and it is their constant endeavour to provide reasonable risk-adjusted returns to investors. Their processoriented investment approach will help them sustain consistency in performance of funds in the years to come.

In fact, they keep a track of ‘happy customers’ to know how satisfied their investors are; and, it gives them immense satisfaction to have a set of happy customers across investment horizons. A fund house managing money well is bound to attract more investments.

Acquisition International - April 2016 41

Civil Mediator of the Year - UK DR160057

Civil Mediator of the Year - UK Greater London and East Anglia mediation LLP (GLEAMED) provides dispute resolution services throughout East Anglia and the adjacent London Boroughs.

Company: Greater London and East Anglia Mediation LLP Name: Tom Thomas Email: mediation@gleamed.co.uk Web: www.gleamed.co.uk Address: St. Martin’s House, 63 West Stockwell Street, Colchester, CO1 1HE, and Coram Chambers, 9-11 Fulwood Place, London, WC1V 6HG. Phone: +44 (0) 1206 217133

We are registered by the Civil Mediation Council and Family Mediation Council, approved by the Ministry of Justice, hold a Legal Aid Agency contract for family mediation and meet their associated Mediation Quality Mark standard.

We provide civil, commercial, family (including publicly funded), workplace, employment and community mediation. We also offer international mediation, training and mediation awareness presentations, and have links to the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex.

Our clients come from every walk of life and their disputes range from major business contractual, financial and governance issues down to the everyday problems we encounter in our daily lives with property, boundaries, consumer protection, building works, debts, probate, etc.

We are delighted that our work has been recognised by this prestigious award as it helps to increase the profile of mediation as an effective, efficient and relatively hassle-free process for resolving disputes.

It has been our mission for some 8 years now to contribute to social cohesion by providing mediation services to the community in our area so that they can resolve disputes quickly before they become too acrimonious and divisive. The ideal outcome is that those who have been in dispute can pass each other in the street or elsewhere, without wanting to cross the road or otherwise avoid any encounter.

Mediation is often seen as a side-show to mainstream litigation and our main challenge is to make it the first choice. Initiatives to widen and increase the use of mediation come and go but never seem to really catch on. Mediation is much closer to the mainstream for dealing with family matters than with civil and commercial disputes and within the mediation community we need to build on the success being demonstrated in one sector to spread the benefits of mediation into others.

Attitudes to mediation in the civil and commercial sector remain divided between those who suspect it implies making concessions and therefore signals weakness, or that it will somehow undermine access to the law and litigation, and those who want to see the Courts being used as the place of last resort for dispute settlement. Policy seems to be steering a course in-between, based on making more information on mediation available so that individuals can make up their own mind about whether to try

42 Acquisition International - April 2016

mediation or not. There is much debate about whether this should include making an information and assessment meeting with a mediator compulsory at an early stage of the legal process, as is the case in family matters, so those with a civil or commercial dispute can make a more informed choice on how to proceed.

GLEAMED is a boutique, pan-mediation provider with a committed and experienced team of mediators who share their experience from the different areas of mediation we cover for the benefit of their colleagues.

Our clients benefit from this wider, more holistic background to our mediator’s work, which we believe ensures they receive the best possible service.

Our biggest constraint is in finding enough suitable and affordable venues around our extended area.

We have good facilities in central London and Colchester but often have to find neutral venues elsewhere, closer to those concerned. These are not always offices – our Surveyor-Mediator recently completed his site visit and then handled the mediation very successfully in a hard hat in the site under construction that was the source of the dispute. Travel arrangements are another consideration, given the size of our area, as mediators may face a long journey home after an extended and tiring mediation, making public transport or an overnight stay more appropriate than self-driving late at night.

Mediation is a voluntary, private and confidential process offering a faster and less expensive way of resolving disputes than going to court, in which the participants negotiate a settlement acceptable to all concerned, facilitated by a neutral, trained and experienced mediator. Disputes can be referred to us by individuals, firms, organisations, solicitors or the courts and more information is available on our website at www.gleamed.co.uk, by email to mediation@gleamed.co.uk or by telephone from +44 (0) 1206 217133.

Best for Accounting & Tax Disputes - Morocco DR160051

Best for Accounting & Tax Disputes - Morocco Company: Cabinet Seddik Email: rseddik@cabinetseddik.com Web: www.cabinetseddik.com Address: 27, Bd Mohamed Zerktouni, 3th Floor. P.O.Box 20100, Casablanca, Morocco Telephone: 00 212 5222 54000 Facsimile 00 212 52277 43 57

SEDDIK firm is a firm of Chartered Accountants Consultants, established in Morocco since 1996. Since its inception, Cabinet SEDDIK aims two goals, firstly to accompany clients at every stage of their development and secondly, to provide offers multidisciplinary services in all areas of management.

Accompany clients at every stage of their development Given the idiosyncrasies of each customer, it is necessary today to give each company an appropriate response to its size, sector of activity and the specific requirements of its stage of development: creation, expansion, redevelopment, reconciliation, acquisition, transmission. SEDDIK Firm has experience and specific tools to meet the individual requirements of each client and every need. This is also understood in the field of national and international geographical development to ensure a local service aware of local conditions.

Provide offers multidisciplinary services in all areas of management The increasing complexity of customer demands and their multiplicity a require interventions that cover all needs: accounting, tax, audit, payroll and HR services, IT, organisation, legal and management consulting. Multidisciplinary teams at Cabinet SEDDIK allows all of its customers to benefit from personalised and efficient services.

By a division of powers within its teams and the synergies developed internationally, Cabinet SEDDIK allows all customers to benefit from the services provided by high-level specialists in different areas.

The success of Cabinet SEDDIK ambitions utilises a homogeneous team of people characterised by a spirit of trust and solidarity. Finally, to meet the needs of its customers and to enable the development of their international activities, the firm entered into several partnership agreements internationally.

History Created in 1996, Cabinet SEDDIK includes Accountants and Consultants Enterprises. Based in Casablanca, Cabinet SEDDIK operates on the entire territory of Morocco and is involved in various business sectors. Since its inception, Cabinet SEDDIK, ensures support for its customers at every stage of their development, taking into account the specificities of each in order to employ a more suitable solution.

SEDDIK Cabinet draws its reputation in the involvement and reputation of his associates, and the quality of services offered to its customers. These personalised and efficient services are provided by multidisciplinary teams and top specialists.

In 2001, a Council of Company and Management Training “SEDDIK & Associés”, was created under the leadership of our firm to consolidate our expertise in Consulting and to be attentive to the needs of our customers. Since its creation, the number of employees the firm has grown from five to twenty permanent and constituting the limit of human size to ensure quality personalised service.

Diversified and experienced professionals, imbued with a spirit of solidarity and trust are now the guarantee of a high quality of service and also the trust we enjoy with our customers.

Our values Driven by the desire to capitalise extensive experience in all areas of the Expertise and Consulting Firm SEDDIK effort to provide multidisciplinary services based on respect three key principles: • Excellence • Competence • Independence SEDDIK provides its customers its expertise and know-how broken down by sectors to best meet their specific needs. In a context marked by the proliferation of free trade agreements, the increased competition and the internationalisation of standards for quality, financial and accounting, have become an essential tool of competitiveness. Moroccan enterprises should therefore seriously consider their policy restructuring and upgrading to enhance their presence both locally and at markets abroad.

SEDDIK Firm staff are committed to support our customers during this important stage of their lives, to share with them their knowledge of national and international industry conditions, advise with respect to growth opportunities while ensuring their guarantee management systems risk adapted to even allow them to face the future with more confidence.

Cabinet SEDDIK is the winner of: • ACQUISITION INTERNATIONAL Legal 100 – 2013 • ACQUISITION INTERNATIONAL M&A Accountancy & Consulting – 2014 • SEDDIK Firm is member of MSI Global Alliance, Independent legal & accounting firms.

Services offered SEDDIK Firm mission is to assist their clients in all areas of Consulting building on appropriate skills and always on the lookout for technological innovations.

The scope of services covers various fields and to meet the demand of the clients in a consistent, integrated and harmonious.

Finally, the range of services covers all areas of expertise and Consulting include: • Legal auditing & Auditing; • Management Consulting; • Accounting support; • Financial planning and assistance with implementation; • Legal and tax advice; • Training and Human Resource Development; • Diagnostics, organization & Support for the implementation internal control and management skills.

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Litigation Lawyer of the Year 2016 – Ireland Based in West Limerick in Ireland, PG McMahon Solicitors are a long established firm with a wide private client and business base. We spoke to Rossa McMahon, Partner at the firm, to find out more about their company and get their unique insight into what it’s like working in their region.

Company: PG McMahon Solicitors Name: Rossa McMahon Email: rossa@pgmcmahon.com Web Address: pgmcmahon.com Address: 10 The Square, Newcastle West, Co Limerick Telephone: 353 69 62200

Despite providing a range of different services, litigation has always been the core strength of our practice, which goes back to our early days when Garry McMahon established our practice in the 1960s.

Garry was a renowned personal injury litigator and also had considerable experience in property disputes.

As a result of his expertise, he was appointed in the late 1990’s to a court committee that formulated proposals to the Government that ultimately led to the establishment of the Commercial Court. Furthermore, the firm has acted in a number of significant cases which set legal precedents in Ireland, including in the areas of defamation and arbitration.

Today, we continue to have a focus on personal injury litigation which has included some non-standard cases recently. Examples include product liability proceedings arising out of the DePuy ASR hip recall and complicated liability issues arising out of the collapse of a significant insurer of motorists in Ireland. We have also acted for small businesses and creative professionals in dealing with intellectual property issues and for employees in Commercial Court proceedings alleging unfair competition with previous employers. Personally, I have a particular interest in data protection and privacy issues and am regularly involved in cases against the Irish State for breach of data protection rules in policing records and against a professional regulator for attempting to obtain sensitive personal data in breach of data protection laws.

As a company based in Ireland, we have had to overcome many challenges since the financial crisis in 2008, and the Irish legal market has been in a state of flux ever since. Even before that, competition increased considerably and the number of lawyers in the market multiplied dramatically. New legislation reforming the regulation and structure of the profession is in the process of being implemented, which has raised many new challenges for us and our competitors. We are acutely aware of similar reforms, some years in advance of Ireland, that have taken place in the UK and watch with interest the experience there. But we certainly expect that the market will look very different five or ten years from now and we aim to position ourselves for that new reality so that we can take advantage of any opportunities that arise.

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Looking more closely at our region of County Limerick, we are based from a large town in a rural area. In the past that would have limited growth and opportunities somewhat, though we have always had a broad geographic client base due to various partners in the office coming from different parts of the wider area. However, in recent years we find that in many situations clients want the right person for the job, rather than just the nearest person. That presents us with a significant opportunity but requires a focus on marketing, name recognition and online presence that traditionally many solicitors have neglected. We are meeting that challenge, with significant success in attracting new clients and cases from much further afield than our local area, including international clients who need legal services in Ireland.

As for our experience of the legal industry in general, we have found that legal costs have been under a lot of pressure for the past eight years and will continue in the future. As such, litigation remains an expensive and uncertain undertaking for clients. In areas like personal injury, awards are being cut significantly by the appeal courts and the insurance industry is lobbying hard to restrict awards. In other areas like commercial litigation, the reality of modern data and discovery has made litigation a frequently unsurmountable obstacle for businesses, with only the largest or the wealthiest capable of litigating their issues. Both situations raise issues with access to justice.

With regards to our approach towards client service, our mission is to provide accessible and practical advice, whether it be for private clients facing personal difficulties or stressful litigation, or businesses facing business-critical issues. We want to be trusted advisers who have a long-term relationship with our clients, and that is how our business has developed over the past 50 years. We achieve this by knowing our clients and being responsive to them and their needs.

Information is key, from explaining procedures and managing expectations at the outset to keeping clients as updated as they should be throughout a dispute. Each client is different and the level of contact and information they require and expect varies, and we think we have always been strong in judging those expectations and meeting or surpassing them.

Litigation Lawyer of the Year 2016 – Ireland

Alongside this approach, we have a tight, focussed team in our firm and always work in collaboration so that, generally, most solicitors are aware of the work of the others and can take over matters as and when necessary. This means that all of us also know that our work is reviewed by colleagues, and cases are discussed openly between fee earners regularly. We find this the best way to ensure that our values are consistently applied from case to case.

As for the award, we were delighted to receive this accolade and feel that it was recognition of a long tradition of excellence in litigation. Our founder, Garry McMahon, sadly died in 2008 and we see it as a mark of pride in his achievements and those of the other solicitors in the firm. As lawyers, our focus is on obtaining awards for our clients, or a successful outcome for them, but quite often the public does not or cannot know about a lawyer’s successes, so an award like this is welcome acknowledgement.

Looking further into 2016 and beyond, we are very optimistic about the future of our company. Having gone through a process of rebranding and upgrading our systems, as well as gaining a foothold in some niche areas of the law, we want to build on that.

With the regulation of the legal market still subject to change we are open to opportunities in the future.

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Ones to Watch for 2016: The Best Boutique Law Firms 1603WO35

Ones to Watch for 2016: The Best Boutique Law Firms Based in London and founded in 1761, Rooks Rider Solicitors is a boutique legal firm with specialist local knowledge and a strong international presence.

Company: Rooks Rider Solicitors LLP For further information, contact: Name: James John Email: jjohn@rooksrider.co.uk Web: www.rooksrider.co.uk Address: Challoner House, 19 Clerkenwell Close, London EC1R 0RR Telephone: +44 (0)20 7689 7000

At Rooks Rider Solicitors LLP, we offer bespoke wealth planning, corporate, real estate and advisory services to local and international private clients and corporate organisations. While acting for businesses of all sizes, the firm places special emphasis on advising cross-border entrepreneurial businesses and international private clients. Our knowledge of tax structures, both in the UK and overseas enables us to ensure that our clients’ multi-jurisdictional transactions and business developments are planned in the most tax efficient way, preserving and enhancing their business or private wealth.

The firm is recognised as being a pioneer in offshore tax and trust planning since the 1950s and our lawyers are able to draw on a rich history of offshore tax experience. We use our extensive expertise to offer a full suite of legal advice to help all our clients – whether buying, selling, starting up or looking to grow their business. We are also experienced and skilled in dealing with legal issues related to self storage and serviced offices in the UK. Our teams have an excellent working knowledge of these industries.

At Rooks Rider Solicitors, we believe in partnering with each of our clients for the long run, throughout each life stage for them, their family and their business. That’s why our many long-standing clients still put their trust in us and rely upon our friendly, personal service and professionalism in the fields of: Business sales and acquisitions, Commercial and residential real estate matters, Offshore and onshore trusts and estate planning, Commercial litigation, Dispute resolution in the UK and internationally, Real estate litigation Leasehold reform and Human resources and employment issues.

Our commercial practice dove-tails with our wealth planning and real estate departments enabling us to provide bespoke practical advice to entrepreneurs and their businesses in a seamless manner.

Dedicated teams are available to deal with each specialist concern. Rooks Rider Solicitors have an international reputation for our wealth planning skills.

With an established presence in the City of London, and a global reach extending across all main jurisdictions, our in-depth wealth planning expertise, extensive knowledge of off-shore trust arrangements and our approach to doing business enable us to provide clients with expertise relevant to their individual circumstances.

Whether a business is looking to start up, implement a programme for fundraising, establish a strategy for growth or a plan for exit, Rooks Rider Solicitors provides the practical solutions and applied expertise that help turn ideas and ambition into success.

Since the introduction of the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings (‘ATED’) the firm has been involved

in a number of high value residential property reorganisations and sought throughout the last few years to provide practical solutions to the challenges which the introduction of the ATED regime has presented.

In addition, the firm regularly advises trustee shareholders on the unique position that they encounter when dealing with the acquisition or disposal of shares in companies owning or operating businesses with assets in the UK and elsewhere in the world. These two examples demonstrate the firm has developed an innovative approach through practical step plans providing solutions of a long lasting nature.

In terms of the role our people play in the success of the firm each client is allocated a Partner at an early stage who takes the time to get to know the business and/or individual’s needs and to understand the desired objectives.

We encourage our team members to continuously develop their expertise and business skills for the benefit of our clients. Our wide range of expert services is delivered efficiently in a friendly and professional manner.

Our teams regularly present on cross-jurisdictional matters in the UK and abroad, sharing knowledge with and delivering CPD to our expanding international networks.

Senior Partner, Chris Cooke, is a member of STEP. He plays high profile role on its International Committee; sits on Editorial Board of English/Welsh law section of STEP Directories and writes the UK money laundering sections.

Rooks Rider Solicitors was awarded ‘Solicitors Firm of the Year’ at the Enfranchisement and Right to Manage Awards 2013, one of the most prestigious awards recognising professional excellence in leasehold enfranchisement work. The specialist Leasehold Enfranchisement team at Rooks Rider has acted for a large number of leaseholders, principally high net worth individuals helping them to acquire their freeholds and obtain lease extensions. They also act for landlords, where their tenants have made such applications and they are regularly asked by other law firms to advise on an agency basis with frequent referrals from law firms who don’t have enfranchisement specialists.

In regards to the challenges facing the company in 2016 and beyond the issues on the horizon are continually changing, external challenges will remain in the next few months comprising those relating to the campaigns for and against “a Brexit” from the EU, a slowdown in the world economy and uncertainty in the Middle East. In order to counter these, the firm continually seeks to engage with its network of international clients and contacts in order provide proactive advice as these issues arise.

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Company: PLMJ Names: João Medeiros, Partner and Head of Criminal Litigation Team Paulo Farinha Alves, Partner José Maria Formosinho Sanchez Associate Email: plmjlaw@plmj.pt Web Address: www.plmj.com Address: Avenida da Liberdade, 224 Edifício Eurolex 1250-148 Lisboa – Portugal Phone: +(351) 21 319 73 00

Ones to Watch for 2016: The Best Fraud Investigation Firms PLMJ is one of Portugal’s leading law firms and a key player in the country’s legal sector because of its dynamism, capacity for innovation and quality of service. We spoke to them to find out more about their company, and got their insight into the evolving legal landscape into their region.

Over the years, PLMJ has built up a strong network of joint ventures across Portuguese-speaking countries, where synergies are generated by a common language and culture, especially in Angola and Mozambique. For these regions, PLMJ have sponsored the setting up of local firms who team up with PLMJAngolan and Mozambican Desks back home. Moreover, the firm has specialist teams to deal with clients from nearly every part of the world that our international mandates originate from. To mention just a few, the firm has a China Desk, an Italian Desk, a French Desk, a German Desk, a UK Desk, a Scandinavian Desk and a Swiss Desk.

Through the PLMJ International Legal Network, PLMJ network of joint ventures and desks, clients are able to keep the same contact lawyer in the country of origin, who will coordinate work with local teams, through the desks for the various markets In looking closer at the services PLMJprovide, PLMJ’s core areas of expertise lie in criminal law, white collar defence and compliance. For these services, we deal with all aspects of the cases from the inquiry and discovery phase through to trial, always working in close cooperation with PLMJ’s other practice areas.

Whenever possible, the criminal law, white collar defence and compliance team also focuses its attention on prevention. It works in close cooperation

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with clients on compliance issues, offering auditing services to detect potential problems and providing any necessary corrective advice, as well as advice on achieving best practice standards.

When dealing with fraud detection cases, PLMJ’s investigation depends on the reports and data made available by our clients which are analysed and checked by PLMJ’s experts. Whenever necessary, PLMJ’s team also investigates and collect evidence.

On some occasions, in order ensure impartiality and confidentiality, PLMJ use third-parties to assist in collecting and preserving evidence. After analysing the reports and evidence collected, if PLMJ detects a possible fraud situation, PLMJ reports the situation to the Public Prosecutor’s Office by presenting a criminal complaint regarding the facts and evidence collected.

From that moment on, the criminal investigation is the responsibility of the Public Prosecutor.

Nonetheless, PLMJ supports and actively participates in the proceedings by providing information and requesting the collection of evidence. On fraud prevention, PLMJ offers auditing services to detect potential problems and provides any necessary corrective advice, as well as advice on achieving best practice standards.

Ones to Watch for 2016: The Best Fraud Investigation Firms

This area of law can be quite competitive, and we believe that there are a number of aspects that differentiate us from our competitors.

PLMJ’s criminal law, white collar defence and compliance practice is staffed by a very mature and highly specialised team that is recognised for its experience in advising on and handling fraud cases. For many years now, PLMJ’s criminal law, white collar defence and compliance team has handled the most complex and high profile cases in Portugal.

We find that PLMJ’s expertise and experience stand out in the inquiry and discovery phase, the support and participation of PLMJ in the criminal investigation carried out by Public Prosecutor Office. Its critical technique and focus is very often crucial to the investigation phase of the proceedings.

As a company based in Portugal, there are a number of developments in our region that make it a particularly exciting to time be practicing law in our country. With an economy that is still fragile and trying to define the right way out of a financial crisis that led to the intervention of the IMF/European Commission in the middle of 2011, any analysis of white-collar crime in Portugal is dominated by the investigations relating to the main financial institutions affected.

The circumstances that led to the State’s intervention in BPN (nationalisation in November 2008) and BPP (intervention in 2008 and licence withdrawn by the regulator in 2010) are still today subject to various legal actions that are keeping the Portuguese investigators and courts are busy. In the area of criminal law, all the institutions referred to were the origin of numerous cases with accusations that are still before the Portuguese courts. In parallel, various administrative offence proceedings (brought by the Bank of Portugal) led to accusations in which the fines to be applied to the various people and entities responsible stood at several millions of euros (higher than the maximum for the criminal fines).

Other cases will certainly dominate the Portuguese legal system in the near future.

Firstly, there is a case investigating state secrecy which is at the trial stage, which has a judgment expected during 2016. Secondly, there is also a case relating to Golden Visas in which the judicial authorities are investigating irregular practices in granting visas and which should come to trial before the end of the year. Furthermore, there is also a case in which the sale of Banco de Cabo Verde to a Portuguese businessman is being investigated and in which the Public Prosecutor has arrested the businessman in question.

Lastly, there is also a case looking into the deals made by the same businessman with Congo. In terms of cracking down on crime, this means 2016 will be dominated by judicial attention to the investigation of acts of fraud, tax evasion, corruption, embezzlement, forgery of documents and money laundering. The focus will continue to be on the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the way in which it works together with the investigating magistrate.

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Company: ARN HOXTON Email: suku@arnhoxton.co.uk Web: www.arnhoxton.co.uk Address: 5 Baldwin Street, London EC1V 9NU Phone: +44 (0)207 118 5555

Ones to Watch for 2016: The Leading Tax Experts

ARN HOXTON is a boutique accounting firm based in the city of London, primarily offering services to small and medium sized businesses. Most of the firm’s clients are either successful London based businesses or high net worth individuals from abroad. Companies and individuals who come from abroad and want to set up businesses in the UK or have properties in the UK are the types of clients the firm serves.

The firm is led by Mr Sukumar Saha – a highly respected Chartered Accountant who specialises in personal and property tax.

In an interview with AI, the managing partner Sukumar Saha (Suku) emphasises that “human touch” lies at the heart of the firm’s working ethos. “Since most of our services are bespoke, it is paramount that we build up strong relationship with the clients, and we do this through the mean of human touch.

The first thing is to understand the client’s needs. Each client will have a unique problem – identifying the problem is half the solution”, he explains. Once the problem has been identified, his firm works towards providing pragmatic and effective solutions.

Everybody within the firm, from top to bottom plays a very important role in meeting and exceeding clients’ expectations. “For example when conducting bookkeeping for a client, we need to understand the client’s business and needs, which would be done at a junior level.

Good communication with the client and giving accurate information is critical” Suku adds.

Communication internally is also key, for example “if I am doing something for a client, I will let the other team members know what I am doing and when the client makes any contact, everybody in the team will know what they are talking about”.

Concerning tax advice given by the firm, this falls into three categories - corporation tax, personal tax and VAT & PAYE. First of all, Suku outlines that the firm does not do cross-border tax, but in the UK they deal with corporation tax, and within that they ensure the client pays no more tax than is needed.

In terms of personal tax, where an individual perhaps has their own company or another source of income, such as rental income, ARN HOXTON are only too happy to assist.

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Ones to Watch for 2016: The Leading Tax Experts

Also, when foreign individuals become tax residents in the UK they require a considerable amount of planning, so “we need to ensure that we manage their affairs efficiently and in the most tax efficient way” Suku explains.

The challenge ARN HOXTON are facing in 2016 and beyond relates to technology. There are many online service providers that clients research into, where the accounting perhaps is done from home or from outside the UK. While potential clients can compare such firms online, they cannot however compare the services from one firm to another, Suku highlights.

He adds that the client seeking a low fee may not find the human touch when considering online accounting services. When contemplating who to use for tax services, it is important that the potential client carefully considers the qualifications of the accountants, where they are based, their experience and effective communication from a potential firm.

“Unfortunately accounting profession is unregulated in the UK and anyone can call themselves accountants. Be wary!”. While advances in technology have been great for firms such as ARN HOXTON, “we still need those old-fashioned communication channels between the professionals and the clients.

Technology will go forward and conquer the world, but at the same time human interaction will always be of paramount importance” Suku observes.

Suku wittingly brings in the analogy of brake pads to the accountancy profession; “Accountants are like the brake pads in your car. You will not usually notice them but they are extremely important, and when you need them most, they need to be strong and effective.”

- he concludes.

Finally, Suku stresses that before appointing the accountant it is very important to meet them in person, to ascertain if the client feels comfortable working with them in the long term.

If a face to face meeting is difficult, then talk to them on Skype, check who their clients are etc.

“Don’t just focus on the costs but on the value that accountant can add”.

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Ones to Watch for 2016: The Leading Tax Experts 1603WO45

Lui & Mak Certified Public Accountants Company: Lui & Mak Certified Public Accountants Name: Edmond Kit-Wang Chan Email: kitwang@hkstar.com Web: www.hktdc.com Address: Unit 4-7, 6/F Dominion Centre 43-59 Queen’s Road East Wan Chai, Hong Kong

Ones to Watch for 2016: The Leading Tax Experts Lui & Mak Certified Public Accountants was established in 1968 and is a service company based in Hong Kong.

The firm’s product range incorporates: • Bookkeeping & Accounting; • Corporate Financial Accounting; • Corporate Re-structuring & Insolvency Accounting; • Corporate Secretarial Service; • Financial Forensics; • Investigations & Dispute Services; • Initial Public Offering (IPO);

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• • • • • • • •

Share Registration; Corporate Taxation; Individual Taxation; Company Setting / Formation; Certified Public Accountant Firm (CPA); Management Consultancy; Business Strategy & Implementation; Staff Recruitment & Executive Search.

Ones to Watch in IP, 2016 1604CG95

Company: Maxey Law Offices, PLLC Web: www.maxeyiplaw.com Address: 100 Second Avenue South, Suite 401 North, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701 Telephone: 001 727 230 4949

Ones to Watch in IP, 2016 Maxey Law Offices, PLLC is a boutique law firm that limits its practice exclusively to intellectual property law. The firm was founded in 2008 and since then we have become known as the “turn-to firm for intellectual property.” We continue to build our reputation by providing world-class service and representation in both contested and transactional IP matters.

It is our belief that protecting intangible assets such as brands, know-how, and reputation is instrumental for businesses operating in today’s ever becoming “flat world.” With thousands of almost seamless and borderless transactions occurring throughout the world each day, a business’s ability to stop another from treading upon its brands, know-how, and reputation is critical for survivability and successful growth.

Developing, exploiting, and safeguarding IP assets Astute business leaders are acutely tuned to the importance of identifying and protecting IP assets that bring value to their businesses. These leaders understand that intellectual property law is a complex body of law filled with traps hidden within countless nuances, and they appreciate the value and importance of consulting with proper legal counsel in order to identify and protect their valuable IP assets.

Maximising the value of IP assets and protecting them With increasing pressure being placed upon organisations to maintain profitability while staying competitive within the global market, it is critical for organisations to ensure that they are maximising the value of their IP assets. Maximising the value of IP assets can only be done when those assets are properly protected. Failing to properly protect an IP asset opens paths through which competitors can navigate to exploit that asset. This ability causes the asset to be devalued, a result that likely would not have otherwise occurred if the asset was properly protected. In sum, proper protection leads to maximised value.

How Maxey Law Offices, PLLC stands out in IP We stand out among other firms within the IP field by strictly adhering to our principles and values, which include excellence, integrity, honesty, and professionalism. In essence, these principles and values are our brand and they are reflected within everything we do. We are proud to say these principles and values are not only our brand; they have become our reputation.

The crucial role staff play Our firm has an amazing culture that is built upon collaboration among our staff. This collaborative culture breaks down the competitive barriers between staff members that are often seen at other firms. We believe that our collaborative nature best serves the ultimate goal of meeting client needs in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

Everyone has diverse life experiences and we leverage this diversity to bring different perspectives and skills to issues faced by our clients so that we can provide the world-class service that we have become known to provide.

Challenges in 2016 and beyond Intellectual property has become a forefront issue in a new global economy realised by quickly developing technology. Intellectual property law, both from a national and international perspective, is currently in great flux as the law tries to catch up with legal issues created by technology growth.

New international treaties are being implemented and national laws seem to change almost daily. As an IP boutique law firm, clients expect you to have a great command of the law. Staying current with the law and understanding how the changes will affect your clients today and in the future is likely the biggest challenge facing our industry. But, it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate your ability and standout from the pack.

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Ones to Watch in IP, 2016 1603CG46

Ones to Watch in IP, 2016 Monard Law is one of the leading independent law firms in Belgium with 90 lawyers of which 25 (associated) partners spread out over 4 offices located in the main Belgian cities (Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Hasselt). Monard Law offers a comprehensive range of legal services to both local and foreign corporations as well as governments, financial institutions and private individuals.

Company: Monard Law Name: Daan De Jaeger Email: daan.dejaeger@ monardlaw.be Web: www.monardlaw.be Address: Tervurenlaan 270, 1150 Brussels Telephone: + 32 2 234 67 10

Monard Law has many years of experience dealing with counterfeit and other infringements of intellectual property rights through litigation (Anton Piller orders, prohibitive injunctions, interim relief procedures, action for damages etc.). Infringements of your intellectual property (copyright, trademarks, software etc.) may also be subject to criminal proceedings if the infringement was carried out with criminal intent.

Clients can also call upon Monard Law to draft various intellectual property rights-related agreements such as license agreements, the transfer of intellectual property rights within the framework of an employment contract or the transfer of rights relating to copyrighted works “made to order”.

Monard Law advises and assists you with formulating your strategy when it comes to registering or revealing your creations.

Monard Law also provides clients with expert advice on their rights and obligations with regard to the Internet, privacy protection or reputational damage.

Clients can rely on Monard Law to keep track of the rapidly evolving legislative framework in the area of intellectual property, the technology and telecoms sectors and the compliance with competition requirements. In the framework of a Merger & Acquisition transaction, Monard Law can be called upon to carry out an IP audit.

What the company stands for Our firm’s key values are respect and integrity, teamwork, client focus, entrepreneurial and quality driven. We value a personal relationship with our clients, and therefore each client is treated with the hands-on involvement of (at least) one partner of the firm. We take the effort to get to know and understand our clients. We will offer you strategic guidance with attention to clients’ internal processes and needs. The lawyers at Monard Law operate in specialised practice groups with a high degree of reachability. Their aim is to provide concrete and practical solutions.

Intangible assets such as brands, know-how and reputation Intangible assets are of key importance to businesses. The importance and value of intellectual property rights is often underestimated. In our knowledge-based economy, intellectual property rights are of ever greater importance for companies to remain competitive. We see indeed more loans

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granted to companies based on pledges on IP as collateral than before.

The value of their IP assets If investments and innovations are unprotected and become successful, it will attract copycats and free riders. Most often a posteriori protection will come too late.

Innovative means of developing, exploiting and safeguarding these assets The downside of the upcoming social media can be reputation ‘risk’. I think every company should have a strategy and a manual they can roll out to mitigate losses resulting from damages to a firm’s reputation.

How Monard Law stands out in their field of expertise We are a mid-size firm that has an eye for tailor-made solutions and clients with specific needs. If the client has specific requirements on follow-up or particulars, we still have the flexibility to adapt to the client’s needs (difference with Magic circle firms). We follow the IP project from conception through distribution (sales and even aftersales). In distribution and distribution networks we have excellent expertise. We have a focus on luxury products with a focus on the fashion and automotive industry.

The firm made a name for itself, also in the area of Intellectual Property, by its partner driven, pragmatic, hands-on approach securing a satisfactory outcome for its clients within a reasonable timeframe at very competitive rates, a task which has grown ever more difficult and requires ever more creativity as Belgium’s judicial system is bogged down due to underfunding and a substantial backlog of cases on the dockets.

In closing, our firm furthermore deserves recognition in the area of Intellectual Property because of: • The presence of our firm in several high-profile cases for high-profile international clientele; • Our recognition in the area of intellectual property by our competitors on the Belgian market whom we very regularly encounter as opposing counsel or as co-counsel; • Our partner driven practice (2 partners, 8 qualified lawyers).

Most Innovative Tax Service Provider – UK TA160074

Company: The Oxford Silk Partnership Email: info@oxfordsilk.com Web: http://oxfordsilk.com/ Address: Couching House, Watlington, Oxford OX49 5PX Telephone: 01865 593655

Most Innovative Tax Service Provider – UK We at The Oxford Silk Partnership have been providing bespoke business services for over thirty years. We pride ourselves on offering a professional service to a wide range of industries. We help businesses to take opportunities whilst ensuring that our clients maintain their regulatory responsibilities.

By using our services, you will be able to build on your achievements to succeed in realising the full potential of the business.

Our customers demand a high level of service to address the numerous challenges and opportunities presented by the dynamic and volatile environment in which we exist today. We recognise this by ensuring our services are customised, precise, and sustainable.

Our innovative nature sees us strive to constantly improve & our clients benefit from this vision.

By partnering with The Oxford Silk Partnership with our multitude of experts we can help you to navigate the path to maximise all of the opportunities you find presented to you. Our expertise covers a wide range of disciplines as we ensure you are able to fulfil your needs whilst exceeding your expectations.

However, to ensure that we provide an excellent service we can only offer our services to businesses that share the same vision. We therefore evaluate all potential customers to protect our finite resources.

To have won the Most Innovative Tax Service Provider – UK award, we are immensely proud to be recognised for our services Approach to offering tax services Our professional tax experts recognise their duty of giving responsible tax advice in these austere times. The dynamic trend in increased regulation, both globally and locally gives rise to challenges not seen before. By using experts in both accounting and legal fields our clients receive the benefit of a multi-disciplined approach to these challenges. Our experts are invested in the success of your business using their understanding of global governance and the nuances our experts ensure you have the advantage over your competitors.

Staying at the cutting edge of new developments including technology In this fast paced business environment technological innovation can increase productivity whilst reducing the outlay required. We also recognise that badly sourced or poorly utilised technology can be detrimental to a business. That is why our experts are at the cutting edge of technological developments so we can advise & implement technology in a timely manner to resolve your technology challenges whilst exploiting the technology opportunities. at you are always best placed to meet your clients’ needs?

Standing out from competitors Our philosophy can be encapsulated into one word: TRUST.

We recognise that to many entrepreneurs a business is more than just a 9 to 5, it is their reputation, it is their integrity and it is their pride. They have nurtured this from humble beginnings to where it stands now on its journey. We realise that it takes a lot to trust someone with your business so when we begin our partnership with your business we foster your trust and grow this into a prosperous and uninterrupted relationship which is mutually beneficial to all parties.

We fully appreciate that all actions have consequences both positive and negative so we work hard to ensure our activities do not only positively affect our clients and ourselves but also society more widely, both through our actions and advice. We feel this builds a sustainable business that truly lies at the heart of the global community.

Our philosophy is embedded in every quantum of The Oxford Silk Partnership to ensure we offer a positive and distinct service to our clients. It helps to guide our strategy both internally and how we positively shape the global community.

We realise that it is difficult to stand by ethics in the complexity of the modern business environment but our principles are fundamental to overcoming every adversity and grasping every opportunity and they apply to every partner in our firm from client to employee. We want to make sure every partner of our firm feels proud to be part of the Oxford Silk family and are empowered to do the right thing. To build on each other’s individual success to create an even greater success. We believe everybody wants to succeed and we all need help to achieve that success. By pooling our individual talents, we can collaborate to achieve greatness. This is why we have based ourselves just outside the University City of Oxford so we have a talent pool on our doorstep but we also have a global network of experts. We recognise that sometimes we all need guidance so we recruit the best to ensure we can be the best.

Approach to people - choosing both staff and clients We look for partners not customers or employees who share our vision.

Looking ahead The success of our business is measured by the success of our partners. As long as they continue to grow we will continue to grow

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1604EG81

Julius & Creasy

Julius and Creasy is one of the oldest civil law firms in Sri Lanka.

Founded in 1879, the firm has established itself on rich tradition and the highest professional principles.

Julius and Creasy’s wealth of expertise and experience in a wide range of specialised fields of Law enables it to offer innovative legal and business solutions to a diverse, sophisticated and high-profile clientele.

www.juliusandcreasy.com

Best Optical Industry Business Advisors - UK TA160075

Company: Profits in Focus Email: info@profitsinfocus.com Web: http://profitsinfocus.com/ Address: Hilton Hall, Hilton Lane, Staffordshire, WV11 2BQ. Telephone: 01785 333005

Best Optical Industry Business Advisors - UK Profits in Focus are the only accountants and business advisors who specialise in the optical industry. With over 30 years’ experience you are in safe hands to lead you through the complexities of all aspects of working in the optical industry.

We at Profits in Focus pride ourselves on offering a professional service to the optical industry. We help businesses to take opportunities whilst ensuring that our clients maintain their regulatory responsibilities.

By using our services, you will be able to build on your achievements to succeed in realising the full potential of the business.

We offer a bespoke professional service to optical industry to ensure they maximise the opportunities available to them in this dynamic environment. We have experts who specialise in this industry to fulfil all of your needs. We seek to be your first contact at any point where you require a helping hand achieving your goals. Our professionals are at hand to ensure that your business runs smoothly and will collaborate with you to ensure you get your desired result.

Our innovative & ground breaking services stretch across all areas of business to make a real difference to you. Our service is uniquely tailored to the optical industry. We work in partnership with you in order to identify all the internal and external factors that could influence your business then work with you to maximise the positive opportunities available to you.

By partnering with Profits in Focus with our multitude of experts we can help you to navigate the path to maximise all of the opportunities you find presented to you. Our expertise covers a wide range of disciplines as we ensure you are able to fulfil your needs whilst exceeding your expectations.

Our philosophy Our philosophy can be encapsulated into one word: TRUST. We recognise that to many in the optical industry their business is more than just a 9 to 5, it is their reputation, it is their integrity and it is their pride.

They have nurtured this from humble beginnings to where it stands now on its journey. We realise that it takes a lot to trust someone with your business so when we begin our partnership with your business we foster your trust and grow this into a prosperous and uninterrupted relationship which is mutually beneficial to all parties.

Our philosophy is embedded in every quantum of Profits in Focus to ensure we offer a positive and distinct service to our clients. It helps to guide our strategy both internally and how we positively shape the global community School fee planning Cutting the cost of school fees with effective tax planning is nothing new but what we offer is the complete package for our clients. We found one of our clients’ biggest expense is school fees with the average cost for a ‘day’ pupil £13,194 and the cost for borders £30,000 (Source BBC July 2015). With this in mind we developed a solution that allows directors of limited companies to issue dividends to a trust which directly pays the school fees.

Professional solution Profits in Focus professional is a bespoke solution for the optical industry. As the government continue to pursue Umbrella companies along with managed service companies we recognised the need for a new product for our clients who currently use an umbrella based solution. Working closely with both our accountants & our legal experts we are proud to offer the Profits in Focus professional solution.

From speaking to clients we heard that you wanted an all-encompassing product to take care of invoicing, credit control, and bookkeeping along with ensuring you retained a higher percentage of your earnings whilst staying on the right side of the law. Put simply we take the hassle out of being self-employed to enable you to concentrate on what you are good at.

We offer a simple cost structure with no set-up or termination fees. Our friendly and supportive staff will invoice your client based on your timesheet or instructions to ensure you are paid as soon as the client pays your company.

No matter how much you earn, you will have more in your pocket for less stress and headache than you have now.

We fully appreciate that all actions have consequences both positive and negative so we work hard to ensure our activities do not only positively affect our clients and ourselves but also society more widely, both through our actions and advice. We feel this builds a sustainable business that truly lies at the heart of the global community.

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1604AC47

Most Innovative Business Leader - UK Zyda Law is a boutique law firm specialising in navigating regulatory and statutory processes, which involves achieve planning consents and environmental permits for major infrastructure projects. We spoke to Paul Zyda, Principal at Zyda Law, to find out more about their company, and how they provide a top quality city service at competitive regional prices.

Company: Zyda Law Name: Paul Zyda Email: Paulzyda@zydalaw.com Web: http://zydalaw.com/ http://planninghelpline.com/ Address: 60 Cygnet Court, Timothy’s Bridge Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 0DH. Phone: 01789 413949 / 07957143911

A major testament to our success is that in the last 10 years, our blue chip client work has enabled infrastructure development worth an excess of £4 billion. This represents not only commercial client objectives, but wider community investment in jobs and local economies.

Furthermore, we have recently expanded our business, with the creation of the Planning Helpline, a legal planning service predominantly aimed at residential and commercial projects. Before we start work on a case, we offer an initial pro bono review of each matter. This is vital in building up a robust strategy, winning new business from SMEs who might not otherwise instruct leading planning law specialists, and ensuring that potential clients receive tailored advice on the optimum means of proceeding.

Although we traditionally work on gaining consents for large, contentious developments, we observed a gap in the market for a low cost, legal planning service. With few Legal 500 competitor firms offering such as service, we were inspired to bring this facility to clients. To achieve this, we have launched a national Planning Helpline.

Through targeting more residential and smaller commercial clients, the Planning Helpline has allowed smaller planning matters to be filtered through our service, leaving the larger matters to be dealt with under the Zyda Law brand. This maintains a distinction between the two and allows us, as a business, to resource matters more efficiently. This fresh approach to business, with a low cost, high volume model, demonstrates how we are constantly striving for new ways to provide market leaning, innovative services to clients.

Moreover, The Planning Helpline service is primarily online, which means we can reduce our environmental impact and keep costs low for our clients. Additionally, it means that we can assist on matters all over England and Wales, taking advantage of the ability to submit appeals and applications via the planning portal.

As a result of our approach, we consider ourselves to be quite a pioneering firm. We form close and long lasting relations with our clients, we ‘go the extra mile’ and provide legally robust and commercially sound solutions to our clients’ issues.

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As well as our flexible Planning Helpline, our innovative service delivery is one of our features which most attracts our clients. We don’t just offer the usual legal services; we help clients manage their entire project. With our extensive contacts, we bring in experts to form formidable planning teams. And we manage projects from start to finish with our creative cloud-based project management system: Daptiv. With this, everyone involved has uninterrupted and direct access to files, documents, costs and progress updates, which are all secure and available anywhere with an internet connection.

All of our innovations are due to the simple fact that the legal landscape is changing rapidly, and will continue to change well into 2016 and beyond. As such, we will continue to face a number of challenges, such as economic pressures, technological challenges, globalisation and market competition.

In particular, the changes to technology has created a huge impact to the legal industry. Law firms are now switching from a very paper-intensive service, to providing electronic systems to reduce the paper produced and lessen environmental impacts. We are proud to have used a cloud based system for over ten years. This has enabled us to provide our clients with more efficient service, and allows our clients access to our documents, files and progress updates at any time of the day. Likewise, technology is influential for the brand management of a law firm. We regularly write blogs and articles, which we publish online to both the Zyda Law and the Planning Helpline websites.

In terms of my role at the company, this can be quite varied and includes continuing to advise clients whilst also finding time to set strategic objectives and goals for the firm. I enjoy the mix and challenges of the role, and look forward to expanding the firm into new practice areas over the short to medium term. However, our success has been very much a team effort, and our staff are a key ingredient to the success of the firm. We recruit energetic and enthusiastic fee earners, who will be the next generation of planning and environmental law experts.

When training and mentoring new staff, we believe that nurturing our people is incredibly important.

We sign up all our lawyers to the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association and encourage them

Most Innovative Business Leader - UK

to attend conferences to stay up-to-speed on the latest legislature and innovation, and to network with peers and inspiring experts.

As a result, we provide our Trainee Solicitors with the knowledge, tools and opportunities to create a rewarding and successful career for themselves. We take the view that the best way to learn is to do. For this reason, we have been rewarded for our high level of training and recruitment, by recently winning “Best-Recruiter-Small Firm” at the LawCareers.net Training and Recruitment Awards 2015, and “Best Trainer-Small Firm” at the LawCareers.net Training and Recruitment Awards 2014.

As for the award, my team and I are delighted to have had our efforts recognised.

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1604BW49

The Most Innovative UK Accountancy Firm 2016 Formed as a start-up firm of chartered accountants, Aspen Waite has grown to become a recognised firm of business advisors. We got in touch with Paul Waite, CEO of Aspen Waite, to learn more about their company and how they are committed to building their brand as the logical choice for SMEs.

Company: Aspen Waite Name: Paul Waite, Chief Executive Email: paul@aspen-waite.co.uk Website: www.aspenwaite.co.uk Address: Rubis House, 15 Friarn Street, Bridgwater, Somerset TA6 3LH Telephone No:01278 445151

In the beginning, I formed Aspen Waite as a firm of chartered accountants in 1993 in Somerset.

Despite our humble beginnings, it has always been an ambitious firm and was involved in several international consulting contracts from an early stage.

Over time, expansions to Aspen Waite initially took place to the East of England, which lead to the opening of an office in Hampshire. Around five years ago, I took the decision to position the business as a professional services organisation rather than a firm of chartered accountants. Interaction with customers led me to conclude that there was a huge gap in the market for a firm to offer a wide range of services to SMEs. If anything I underestimated the potential in the market and success has led to other like-minded people being attracted.

Looking further down the road, we have set ourselves the goal of being market leaders in R&D tax credits for what is traditionally called the SME sector. What has led to the steady growth of our business is that we believe in making it as easy as possible to sell, and by removing barriers to this wherever possible. With this in mind, and to remain consistent in what we do, we had to become a truly nationwide business. In late November 2015 we launched our Complete Business Growth Service. The timing turned out to be excellent given the government’s decision to close down its Business Growth Service shortly after.

Despite our success to date, we are certainly not resting on our laurels. In my world, nothing is ever good enough, and what was good enough yesterday is not good enough today. As such, we are always looking to improve and move forward. Given the rate of progress, I genuinely believe that Aspen Waite is the most Innovative firm in the professional services sector. Naturally I am very proud as the Chief Executive and Visionary that our innovation has been recognised by Acquisition International.

More specifically speaking, my most important innovation I believe was my decision to work with non-accountants. I remember the very first Growth Accelerator event I presented at and realising that the coaches in the room were very much like me, and much more so than any feeling I ever had with other accountants.

At the same time, we accept the idea of being challenged and in this way Aspen Waite can benefit from new ideas and benefit from different viewpoints.

Furthermore, establishing what I call “Equal Motivation” by rewarding introducers was a huge step and also introduced us to even more quality people. On the whole, all of what we do ultimately revolves around collaboration.

In my view, pretty much everything we do breaks the mould and we have several USPs, not least our

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guarantee of “anywhere, any fee, any sector”. We passionately believe that ALL businesses deserve at least the basics of great business and tax planning.

As someone who is passionate about marketing and believes that all businesses should seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors, I do not think we have any natural competition as such.

Nonetheless, one has to recognise that in business one is always potentially vulnerable to larger fish swimming above you who play the “big firm” card and smaller fish below you picking up clients and offering low cost. Our approach is very personal and added value based, so on the whole we find our client base grows sustainably. Alongside this approach, no successful business can ever stand still, and it should always look to change and adapt and, most importantly, give people what they really want.

I know that this is a bit of a cliché, but any business (or team for that matter) is only as good as the people in it. I have a strong training background and we believe in investing in people for our future.

Across the board, we have a very diverse range of staff and I say this in every conceivable sense, by discipline, by education, by location, even culturally.

We did not have a Marketing Team until two years ago and perhaps more than any division they have transformed the business. From my experience, attracting good people, as well as operating a time mentoring and reward structure really does work.

As a very forward-thinking firm, we always have our eye on any emerging developments or trends in our industry. The biggest challenge in any businesses is to adapt and pro-act to change in the market, and this more often than not involves technology. The way business is done in the future will be very different, and we are fast approaching the age of Star Trek technology, with holograms and even more use of videos / visuals.

Looking back on how difficult the past number of years have been for the business world, I firmly believe that, in the long-run, the recession was good for business, and people now are far more discerning about what they want. Despite the constant changes in our industry, it never ceases to amaze me how many accountants offer no advice and are basically generating out postcards from the past, I like to play “heads up”.

With all of these aspects in mind, we are very optimistic that our company will continue to grow and prosper. For the first time in our history we will be exhibiting at 5 Business Expos, starting on the 14th April at Windsor. We also have vacancies for Regional Managers in Scotland, NW & NE England and East Anglia (see our website – www.aspenwaite. co.uk). On the whole, we aim to build on our current success and hopefully shape a sustainable legacy as a firm that cared about business and added value.

The Most Innovative UK Accountancy Firm 2016

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1604JC56

ERRIAH CHAMBERS

Company: Erriah Chambers Name: Dev R. ERRIAH Email: deverriah@intnet.mu / eclaw@orange.mu Web: www.erriahchambers.com Address: 2nd Floor, Hennessy Court, Cnr of Pope Hennessy & Suffren Streets, Port Louis 11325, Mauritius Telephone: (230) 208 2220 / (230) 208 3220 / Fax : (230) 212 6967

Most Innovative Law Firm - Mauritius ERRIAH CHAMBERS was set up in response to the demand for Mauritiusbased lawyers with international exposure and specialized expertise in the fields of International tax law, International trusts law, International Business laws, and all aspect of offshore business activities. The Chambers specialises in International Trust, International Finance, Banking Law, Shipping Law, Aircraft Finance and Leasing, Project Finance, Corporate & Commercial Law, Litigation and cross border insolvency, tracing and debts recovery, enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards, arrest of foreign vessels, drafting of transactional documents.

ERRIAH CHAMBERS acts as legal adviser and legal consultant to various banks, corporate clients and High Net Wealth Individuals in Mauritius and internationally.

More than 80% of the Chamber’s practice involves advising international clients, multinational enterprises, international law firms, the top ten international accountant firms, management companies, domestic and international banks. The Chambers is also involved in setting up of various investment funds with very complexed structures in India, various jurisdictions in Africa, and China etc. The Chambers provides litigation services, advice and legal opinions on any aspect of the laws of Mauritius, international tax planning, domestic taxation, import and export services, all cross-border transaction, hotel industry and construction law, international investments, international trusts law.

Erriah Chambers is headed by Dev Erriah and consists of a team of nine barristers and has associateship with many foreign law firms. The Firm is also a member of LEX Africa - Africa’s First Legal Network for 2014 The Firm has until now won the following Awards: 1. Acquisition International Legal Awards 2011 – Erriah Chambers – Mauritian Corporate Law Firm of the Year; 2. Chambers and Partners 2012 – Dev Erriah Leading Lawyer in General Business Law 3. Chambers and Partners 2012 – Erriah Chambers - Leading Firm in General Business Law 4. Capital Finance International – Erriah Chambers – Best Law Firm Africa 5. World Finance Legal Awards 2012 – Dev Erriah – Best Tax Consultant, Mauritius 6. World Finance Legal Awards 2012 – Erriah Chambers – Best Tax Firm, Mauritius 7. ACQ Global Awards 2012 – Erriah Chambers – Corporate Law Firm of the year, Mauritius 8. Finance Monthly Global Awards 2012- Erriah Chambers- International Tax Law Firm of the Year, Mauritius.

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9. ACQ Global Awards 2013(ACQ5) – Erriah Chambers – Corporate Law Firm of the year, Mauritius 10. Chambers and Partners 2014 – Dev Erriah Leading Lawyer in General Business Law 11. Chambers and Partners 2014 – Erriah Chambers - Leading Firm in General Business Law 12. ACQ Global Awards 2014(ACQ5) – Erriah Chambers (Lex Africa) – Leading M&A Advisory Firm of the Year 13. Fenice Media – Corporate Live Wire – Most Outstanding Corporate Law Firm Mauritius – Innovation & Excellence Awards 2015 14. Acquisition International 2016 – Most Innovative Law Firm in Mauritius 15. ACQ5 – ACQ Law Awards 2016 – Erriah Chambers – Mauritius – Corporate Law Firm of the Year 16. M & A Today – Global Awards 2016 – Erriah Chambers - Mauritius – Corporate Law Firm of the Year Individual Profile Dev Erriah graduated in the UK and holds LLM in international tax law, Company law, law of International Finance and International Trusts from the University of London. Dev Erriah worked for a number of years in England and did his pupilage with Philip Baker QC at Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers.

Dev Erriah was the first Chairman of STEP Mauritius (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) respectively. He is also a member of the International Bar Association and forms part of Committees N (TAX) and E (Banking).

Areas of Practice: Commercial Litigation l Represented Standard Chartered Bank (Mauritius) Limited in a commercial litigation for enforcement of various securities given in favour of the bank; l Telecom Italia for Insolvency Matters

Most Innovative Law Firm - Mauritius

Overseas Litigation l Rhodes Trustees VS Dena Gamble & Ors C.A. No. 11 of 2014 (Final Court of Appeal) – Seychelles; l Appleby Trust (Mauritius) Limited & Other vs Ms Cristina Crociani / Mrs. Camilla Crociani Anor – Privy Council.

Recent Aircraft Finance & Leasing & Project Finance (1) Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur (COFACE); (2) Billund Transaction – Billund Mauritius Leasing 2 Limited – ATR 72-600 MSN 1032, MSN 1023, MSN 1041, MSN 999, MSN 995 with Air Nostrum , Deutsche Bank and Clifford Chance LLP; and (3) Air Asia (Mauritius) Limited – Financing and Leasing of Airbus A320-200 bearing MSN 5344, 5812, 5762, 5866, 5851, 5839, 5918, 4979, 4098, 4964, 4917 & others.

(4) Akara/Kingsgate - Asia Gold Ltd’s – Investec Bank, Credit Finance – King & Wood Mallesons (5) Represented Bayport Management Ltd in connection with a USD 250 Million Loan from Overseas Private Investment Corporation (“OPIC”) a US government development finance institution.

l Key Client: Air Asia, Linklaters, Standard Chartered Bank, Clifford Chance, Investec Bank, Yes Bank Limited, White & Case Ltd, Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, Dentons UKMEA LLP, Enko Capital Management (Pty) Limited, OPIC. International Work: All aspects of Global/Offshore business laws banking, Finance and Project, M&A; Commercial litigation; Corporate & Commercial, Trust, Tax and International Tax; International Trust Litigation

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Innovative Law Firm of 2016 – Canada 1604AC12

Innovative Law Firm of 2016 – Canada Founded in 2002 by Marcel Banasinski, Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law is dedicated to helping men overcome the challenges they encounter in family law and divorce matters. Men often feel they are fighting a losing battle during the divorce process, and this does not need to be the case as Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law fights to ensure every client obtains a fair and reasonable outcome, and one that they can feel comfortable with.

Company: Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law Name: Marcel Banasinski Website: www.dadlaw.ca Email: marcel@dadlaw.ca Address: (head office): 501-77 City Centre Drive, East Tower, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, L5B 1M5 Telephone: 1-866-632-3529 Fax: 905-949-0099

Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law is known worldwide for its pioneering and innovative approach in protecting the rights of men and fathers in divorce and family law in Canada. We are constantly evolving and adapting to the changing roles men and fathers face in family law, and it is this experience in specifically representing men and fathers that has set us apart from other family law firms.

In our view, the ability and willingness to innovate is crucial and essential to distinguish ourselves from other law firms and to thrive in today’s very competitive world wide legal marketplace. Our lawyers and support staff strive to be at the forefront of legal developments with respect to protecting the rights of men and fathers in the changing legal landscape. They are proactive in dealing with clients and their issues in a timely and constructive manner.

At Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law we are committed and dedicated to providing our clients with the best legal services for a reasonable and competitive price.

As a result of this philosophy, we are a pioneer in Canada in providing legal services to family law clients in offices located in several cities. Each office is remotely connected to the head office which allows for the centralization and optimization of the data and

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direct access to the client and accounting files from each office. Moreover, we use cutting-edge technology to provide legal services to clients throughout the world in a reliable and efficient manner.

Generally speaking, the separation process in a family law context can be extremely stressful, particularly at the outset. For individuals contemplating a separation or undergoing a separation, it is only normal to feel overwhelmed by the process and the lingering unanswered questions.

Men and fathers involved in the separation process, whether at the outset, in the middle, or towards the end, and whether in a court action or engaged in out-of-court negotiations, should retain a family law firm that specialises in the unique issues and circumstances facing them. Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law is such a law firm.

At Banasinski & Associates o/a Dad Law we understand that during this emotional and complicated time, men often feel confronted by insurmountable obstacles. The firm works hard to help men navigate these emotional and complex issues and provides the practical legal advice needed to move through the process and emerge selfassured on the other side.

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016 - Italy 1604CG09

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016 - Italy As a lawyer and professional representative before the Italian, community and European authorities, Domenico de Simone has devoted himself exclusively to intellectual property since 1972. We got in touch with him to find out how both himself and his company continue to innovate and develop their services.

Name: Domenico de Simone Law firm: De Simone & Partners S.p.A Email: info@desimonepartners.com; law@desimonepartners.com Web: www.desimonepartners.com Telephone: +39 06 853361 Address: Via Vincenzo Bellini, 20, 00198 Rome - Italy

As a professional and senior partner, I have dealt with intellectual property matters for business ranging from small-start-ups to major multinationals. As a result of this expertise, I have been personally involved and active in the evolution and management of intellectual property in Italy and beyond. In 2002, I set up my new tech-law operation, which consisted of de Simone & Partners S.p.A and of de Simone Law Firm. Together with my well-established partners and team, I have served a diverse range of clients across the globe, including such areas as mechanical engineering, petrol, electronics, pharmaceuticals, finance, biotechnology and chemicals, to name a few.

We firmly believe that the reason for our success is that we have always been willing to adapt to any emerging developments or trends in our industry. As a result of the ever-increasing speed of information, coupled with the increasing weight and complication of the ECJ decisions, we constantly need to keep up with the pace of our highly competitive industry. As a company that caters for businesses of all sizes, we also understand that every client is different and develop a service that is highly specialised and can be tailored to their specific needs. Nowadays, the difference between staff and pros have certainly been reduced. As a result, we no longer hire young lawyers and paralegals, because the standard has often become too much for them.

Across all industries, the increasing speed of communication and competition are impacting almost every aspect of a business, including intellectual asset management. In going through these structural changes, we have developed the idea that contemporary intellectual property attorneys have to adapt to these changes as well as adhering to the field’s basic principles.

Advances in technology have simplified the preparation and filing of patent, trademark, design and any other kind of application by harmonising legal norms and automating forms, thus reducing the distinctiveness and the value of that type of service. Today’s intellectual property attorney will see these changes as a selective opportunity to devote greater effort into adding forward and downstream value by contributing to the whole cycle, including alternative strategies and procedures, developing business plans, conducting proactive searches into exclusive availability, brand and technology awareness, commercial and territorial deployment strategies, distribution, licensing, franchising contracts, and active and passive defence.

Throughout my forty years of professional practice, we have followed the concept that the acquisition of an exclusivity is not limited to the rights over the final

product, but also involves issues such as the fallout over the complete entrepreneurial area surrounding that product, the original idea, the research, funding, production, marketing, communication, the memory of the organisation, the credit rating advantage, the equity benefit, and the quality of the knowledge acquired by R&D. And the real competitive edge is measured by the integration of all these before-the-market elements.

We therefore suggest that intellectual property attorneys should be more closely and better involved, and acquire the ability to educate and to follow the pulse of the client’s initiatives.

Generally speaking, if we become involved early on in taking decisions, we can really play a proactive role. As contemporary IP attorneys, we shall be in a position to provide forward advice on the feasibility and economic contribution of business projects. We may also help to balance the internal position of the creative R&D and marketing functions.

From our experience, several factors have contributed to inflating intellectual property costs. Globalisation is an obvious example where international business development is spreading more broadly and rapidly, and there is a potential intellectual property cost escalation due to the greater protection needed in more countries for filing, licensing and monitoring.

Therefore, more registration is needed in new transit territories, and more resources are required for local controls. This has to be offset by ensuring greater returns. Alongside this, the consumer is becoming more sophisticated, more aware, and more demanding. This is accelerating competition and creating a dramatic sophistication of product segmentation, with differentiation sometimes becoming very narrow, creating the risk of investing in scarcely enforceable ideas/initiatives/ edges.

As such, many more companies are turning their legal departments (where intellectual property is housed) from cost centres to profit centres. These companies consider that today’s ideas are not only materialised into products, but are also being licensed, sold, or bartered in their raw state for great value. These companies are getting value through intellectual property management. In order to accomplish this, clients are increasingly looking for this type of outside expertise, to provide internal training to transform the maintenance of intellectual property from a routine task into a proactive asset management mission, and to generate savings. In this sense, we believe that real savings come from competence, not from discounts.

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With over 250 primates of 20 different species, Monkey World is the largest sanctuary of its kind in the world. The monkeys and apes that live at the park are mainly there as a result of being abused or neglected in their previous circumstances.

The expert team of primate care staff work around the clock to rehabilitate and integrate the animals into natural living groups.

Combining fun with conservation and animal education, half-hourly talks by the dedicated Primate Care Staff explain all about man’s closest living relative. They love to share their knowledge of all the individuals in their care, so don’t hesitate to ask any questions when the talk is over. Pre-bookable guided tours are also available.

You can support Monkey World in continuing their rescue and rehabilitation work by taking part in the Adopt a Primate Scheme. Prices start from £25 for the year and include a photograph, certificate, three editions of the Ape Rescue Chronicle and free entry to the park for a year.

Monkey World - Ape Rescue Centre, Nr Wareham, Dorset, BH20 6HH Tel No: +44 (0) 1929 462537 email: apes@monkeyworld.org www.monkeyworld.org

Most Innovative Law Firm Germany 1604CG79

Most Innovative Law Firm Germany SGT Rechtsanwaelte primarily advises corporates and high-net worth-clients on their legal affairs and acts as an external legal department for companies who do not have their own legal desk. We spoke to Dr. Simon-Alexander Zeidler, Partner at SGT Rechtsanwälte, to find out more about their firm, and how they consistently deliver for their clients.

Company: SGT Rechtsanwaelte Name: Dr. Simon-Alexander Zeidler Email: duesseldorf@sgt-lex.com Web: www.sgt-lex.com

In terms of our expertise, we provide legal advice to our corporate clients in all of their legal affairs, including litigation. In some areas, like labour law and tax law, we work together with partner law firms specialised in this area. Our services cover a highly diverse range of areas including: banking and financial markets, commercial law and contracting, company law, real estate, energy, new economy, internet, IT and data protection, compliance and services of a notary public.

As a company working in a highly competitive industry, we believe that our wealth of experience is what separates us from our competitors. Most of our partners have worked for international law firms before they came to us, and it is because of this that we work for national and international companies at a very high level.

Added to our expertise, we also have an “in-house desk”, which allows clients to have the same level of services as an own legal team. This team contains three lawyers who spent several years in law departments of companies, and one of them established the law and compliance department of an international bank in Germany and headed it for nearly 25 years. With this experience, we offer to our clients a full service, and in this way is the equivalent of them having their own legal department. By “services” we do not only mean the legal knowledge which is normally offered, but also the pragmatic approach only an internal legal department has. Our clients can buy a detailed and extensive legal opinion from us, and take into account all of the options available to them. Nevertheless, most of our clients prefer a fast and practical solution without endless caveats and the last dissent opinion available. If the management of a client is decisive, we can complement this with quick and short legal advice.

From our experience, the competition in our industry is growing fast. Even the large international law firms, usually booked on M&A transactions, do accept clients they would not have – say – ten years ago.

As such, new areas of practice develop and have to be covered. A prime example of this is online law, which nowadays is relevant to almost every company.

If you ignore developments such as these, you will find yourself struggling in the market. The same applies for data protection law, where ten years ago no one really cared about this yet today is frequently requested by our clients.

However, the most stunning development has been in compliance. This is not even its own field of law but an interdisciplinary skill of process management and legal management. No one in Germany, besides the financial institutions, really cared about this before the “Siemens Bribery Scandals” happened.

Since then, the legal environment totally changed.

Advisory companies in this area have sprung up like mushrooms, and each lawyer, business consultant and accountant offers “Compliance-Services”. As a matter of fact, if you cannot help your client with this regard you may end up losing your client. And yet, compliance is not very complicated, and is basically process management and communication. Again, our experience as in-house lawyers has helped us, and we understand how communication within a company works and how you translate a complicated legal matter – like antitrust law – in simple words to non-legal employees. There’s really not much to it.

From our experience, there is no big secret behind success in legal consulting. It all comes down to the client, and we simply make sure that our clients are happy with our services. We try to be close to the business of our clients, to understand what they are doing and to provide them with the best legal service we can. It’s as simple as that.

In terms of our clients, we mainly work for small and middle sized companies in Germany and abroad.

On the whole, we advise financial service providers, online shops, real estate funds, investment funds, old-economy companies, automotive supplier, watch fabricants and family offices, to name a few.

As a result of the success of our clients, most of our clients have come from referrals. The majority of our clients come from the network of our existing clients, and only in some target areas – like in online law, we do further work to attract business such as with publications and lectures.

When it comes to managing our workload, it is important that we do not work with a high leverage.

Our clients are businesspeople and they expect to be advised by businesspeople. Therefore, we operate with a high number of partners and not too many associates.

The main issue for us is to get the right partners on board accepted by our clients. Generally speaking, not every good lawyer is also able to be a good partner, and through looking at our growth we have managed to progress at a stable and manageable level.

During the past number of years, we have had to learn how to handle growing our business and at the same time not compromising our services. . There is a saying in Germany: “Put two lawyers together and you will get three opinions on the case”. There is some truth in that and this does also apply if the lawyers do work together. However, beyond this minor challenge I do not see any other real challenge for our company to stay successful. The industry will have to face more competition because the number of lawyers is rising which does not always mean an increase in qualified legal advice.

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Most Innovative Firm in Hungary 1604AC93

Company: SBGK Attorneys at Law and Patent Attorneys Name: Dr. Katalin Szamosi, managing partner and president of SBGK Email: mailbox@sbgk.hu Web: www.sbgk.hu Address: Andrassy ut 113., 1062 Budapest, Hungary Telephone: +3614611000

Most Innovative Firm in Hungary SBGK has been a significant actor in the Hungarian legal professional market since the 1970’s. It stands out with the thorough knowledge of the intellectual property law practice area. The firm was established in 1969 by the association of the most competent attorneys at law and patent attorneys in the area of patent, trademark and copyright law. The list of practice areas extended with commercial and corporate law and after the political change with competition law, which resulted in significant growth of international clientele. At the same time SBGK kept its leading position in the growing competitive environment.

The members of the firm have been dealing with innovations and research and development projects during the course of digital revolution. In connection with that they concluded that innovation could be accomplished in the field of law as well, especially in providing legal services. Not only the developing the Hungarian industry, but the expansion of branches of law demands an innovative environment, which is manifested in both the technical support and the way of thinking. There is an ever growing demand from clients to attend their matters promptly that may be achieved by utilizing time with software solutions Standing out from the crowd SBGK recognised in early stages, that the economic growth and expanding legislation will result in demand for legal services, thus eventually in multiplication of legal firms and the over-supply of the competitor’s services. In order to stay competitive, SBGK is providing quality work at reasonable rates which is due the technical support and the restructuring of the internal work, and most importantly training of our attorneys. SBGK stands out from the crowd not only with its history and prestige, but also with its corporate culture and values respected and represented by its members.

Remaining competitive in the 21st Century In the 21st century, observing the clients’ economic decisions we learned, that you can only stay competitive if you position correctly your professional knowledge, your clients and your rates. We can provide the local knowledge in an international law firm style with we believe that stay more competitive than the big international law firms. In relation to smaller local law firms, we stay ahead by responsiveness to the client’s needs which can be achieved with proper and well equipped support staff, thus allowing our attorneys to focus on solely on legal work.

Standing out from the competition We can provide steady and continuous services for our clients at reasonable rates, so our competitors cannot offer a real alternative that could weaken the loyalty of our clients. We also maintain close relationship with most of our clients, therefore our goal is always to solve their problem in the most

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efficient way possible. That is to say we always evaluate their matters from an economic perspective as well and have tailor-made our services accordingly.

Clients represented SBGK represents Hungarian and foreign clients from the small- medium- sized enterprises as well as international blue chip companies. The firm also helps many innovative companies, including startups, who aim for economic results by the utilisation of their own intellectual properties. Our clients attend conferences organised by us, read the articles published by the firm, or listen to our professional lectures, or often another client of ours recommends us to them. We take special care when approaching new clientele and in follow up procedures in order to receive good client feedback and satisfaction.

The role of people in the firm The success of the firm is owed to our professionally well-prepared and enthusiastic staff exclusively; indeed, their professional work is the link between our firm and clients. It goes without saying that our long term success can only be maintained with ever continuing learning and adaptation to our client’s needs. Attorneys must not only possess the best knowledge in their practice areas, but also have to be good sales man and psychologist too.

Opportunities in 2016 and beyond The efficiency of the firm is highly influenced by the state of the Hungarian economy, so the biggest challenge is the efficiency of our clients.

Furthermore, the European Unitary Patent System and its expected effects can influence the further activities of the firm, particularly with the involvement in cross border patent litigation. In this field we started the training of our attorneys, if they have to represent either a foreign or a Hungarian client in a patent case in front of Unitary Patent Courts.

Most Innovative Law Firms 2016

Most Innovative Law Firms 2016

Most innovative law firm 2016 Morocco Company: Bakouchi & Habachi-HB Law Firm LLP Email: kamal@hblaw.ma Web: www.hblaw.ma Address: 6, Rue Farabi, Bd Rachidi, Résidence Toubkal, 2ème étage, Gauthier, Casablanca Maroc Telephone: +212 522 47 4193

Most innovative law firm 2016, South Africa Company: Sefalafala Incorporated Attorneys Name: Mmatsatsi Sefalafala Email: mmatsatsi@falasattorneys.co.za Web: www.falasattorneys.co.za Address: 1st Floor, Fountain Grove 4, Fountain Grove Office Park, No 5 Second Road, Hyde Park, South Africa Telephone: + 27 (0) 11 325 0497

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Most Innovative Law Firm 2016 - Scotland Company: Ferguson Legal Name: Carole Ferguson Email: carole@fergusonlegal.co.uk Web: http://fergusonlegal.co.uk/ Telephone: +44 (0)1224 900025 Company: MacRoberts LLP Name: Alice McKinlay Email: alice.mckinlay@macroberts.com Web: www.macroberts.com Address: Capella, 60 York Street, Glasgow G2 8JX Telephone: +44 141 303 1100 Company: Richard Freeman & Co Solicitors Email: richard@richardfreemanlaw.com Web: www.roadtrafficexpert.com Address: Roadtrafficexpert.com 40 New City Road Cowcadddens Glasgow G4 9JT Telephone: 0800 567 7810

Most Innovative Law Firm - UK Company: N Legal Name: Kimberley Kong, Director Email: nlegalsolicitors@btconnect.com Web: www.n-legal.co.uk Address: 1-3 High Street, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands B72 1XH Telephone: 0121 3558885

Most Innovative Business Leader UK Company: TM Group (UK) Limited Name: Paul Albone Email: helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk Web: www.tmgroup.co.uk Address: 1200 Delta Business Park, Swindon, Wiltshire SN5 7XZ Telephone: 0844 249 9200

Company: Steele Rose Law LLP Email: legalservices@steelerose.co.uk Web: www.steelerose.co.uk Address: 7 Deans Farm, Stratford sub Castle, Salisbury SP1 3YP. Telephone: 0800 0352 781

Company: FUTURA GROUP Name: PAUL CADMAN Email: Paul.Cadman@futuradesignltd.co.uk Web: www.futura-group.co.uk Address: 3 Wharfside, Rounds Green Road, Oldbury, West Midlands B69 2BU Telephone: +44 (0)333 555 7000

Company: Zyda Law Email: secretary@zydalaw.com Web: www.zydalaw.com Address: 60 Cygnet Court, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire CV37 9NW Telephone: 01789 413 949 Company: WDS Associates Legal Services Email: info@wdsassociates.co.uk Address: 255 Two Mile Hill Road, Kingswood, Bristol BS15 1AY Telephone: 0117 949 1000

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Winners Directory

Most Innovative Offshore Firms 2016 Company: Cavendish Trust Company Limited Name: Christina Rawlinson FCCA, Director Email: tina@cavendishtrust.com Web Address: www.cavendishtrust.com Address: 31-37 North Quay, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 4LB Telephone: +44 1624 679000 Company: Clarus Risk Email: max.hilton@clarusrisk.com Web Address: www.clarusrisk.com Address: Anson Court, La Route des Camps, St Martin, Guernsey, GY1 6BR Telephone: 01481 231 815

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Italy Name: Domenico de Simone Law firm: De Simone & Partners S.p.A Email: info@desimonepartners.com; law@desimonepartners.com Web: www.desimonepartners.com Telephone: +39 06 853361 Address: Via Vincenzo Bellini, 20, 00198 Rome - Italy

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Spain Company: Cortizo Name: Alvaro Rey Riveiro, Managing Partner Email: info@cortizoabogados.com Web: http://cortizoabogados.com/ Address: Capitán Haya 9 28020 Telephone: +34 9139 10559

Most Innovative Law Firm 2016 – Malta Company: WH Partners Email: contact@whpartners.eu Web: http://whpartners.eu/ Address: Level 5, Quantum House, 75 Abate Rigord Street, Ta’ Xbiex XBX1120, Malta Telephone: (+356) 2092 5100

Most Innovative Law firm 2016, Belgium Company: Law Firm Mattijs, Voet & Co Name: Joris Mattijs Email: info@advocatenkantoor-mattijs.be Web: www.advocatenkantoor-mattijs.be Address: Donk 54 – B-2550 Lier Telephone: +32 3 488 4666

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, France Company: Frilet Société d’Avocats Name: Marc Frilet Email: avocats@frilet.com Web: www.frilet.com Address: 91 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France Telephone: +33 156260040

Company: Law Square Name: Karin Winters, Managing Partner Email: info@lawsquare.be Web: www.lawsquare.be Address: Woluwedal 20, 1932 Sint-Stevens-Woluwe Belgium Telephone: +32 2 7107368

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Germany Company: Jordan & Wagner RA GmbH Name: Helmuth Jordan Email: Helmuth.jordan@jordan-ra.com Web: http://jordan-ra.com/ Address: Kernerstraße 28, DE - 70182 Stuttgart, Germany Tel: +49 (0) 711 2554 0460 Most Innovative Law Firm in Lithuania Company: Tark Grunte Sutkiene Web: www.tarkgruntesutkiene.com Address: Didžioji 23, LT-01128 Vilnius, Lithuania Telephone: +370 5274 2420 Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Sweden Company: Stockholm Arbitration & Litigation Center (SALC) Law Firm Name: Dan Engström, Founding Partner and MP Email: dan.engstrom@salc.se Web: www.salc.se Address: Biblioteksgatan 3, SE-111 46 Stockholm, SWEDEN Telephone: +46 8 678 97 70

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Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, China Company: AllBright Law Offices Name: Managing Partner: Wu Mingde Email: liuruling@allbrightlaw.com Web: www.allbrightlaw.com Address: 11, 12/F, Shanghai Tower, No.501, Yincheng Middle Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai P.R. China 200120 Telephone: 021 20511000

Most Innovative Law Firm 2016, Qatar Company: Dentons Name: Safwan Moubaydeen Email: safwan.moubaydeen@dentons.com Web: www.dentons.com Address: Floor 15 Al Fardan Office Tower, 61 Al Funduq Street, West Bay, PO Box 64057, Doha, Qatar Telephone: +974 4459 8960

Most Innovative Law Firm - Iran Company: Atai & Associates Law Offices Name: Mr. Ali. A. Atai Senior Lawyer Email: atai@ataiassociates.com Web: www.ataiassociates.com Address: No. 4, (Former No. 8), 14th Street, Khaled Istamboli Avenue (Vozara), P.O.Box 15875-1633, 15117 Tehran Telephone: +98 (021) 8871 3850

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, the UAE Company: Davidson & Co Legal Consultants Name: Jonathon Davidson Web: www.davidsoncolaw.com Address: Office 504, Shangri La Office Tower, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Po Box 34002 Telephone: +971 4 343 8897

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Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Lebanon Company: SADER & Associates Email: sader@saderlaw.com Web: www.saderlaw.com Address: SADER & Associates, 3rd floor, SADER Building, Dekwaneh, Beirut, Lebanon Telephone: +961 1 499888

Winners Directory

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, the Philippines Company: Romulo Law Firm Email: romulo@romulo.com Web: www.romulo.com Address: 21st Floor, Philamlife Tower, 8767 Paseo De Roxas, Makati City 1226, Philippines Telephone: +63 2 555 9555

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Japan Company: SHIMIZU PATENT OFFICE Web: www.spoip.com Address: 6th Fl., Kantetsu Tsukuba-Science-City Bldg. 1-1-1, Oroshi-machi, Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, Japan 300-0847 Telephone: +81-29-841-2001

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Australia Company: McCormicks Law Email: contact@mccormicks.com.au Web: www.mccormicks.com.au Address: 48 Leichhardt St, Spring Hill, QLD 400 Australia Telephone: +61 7 3014 0001

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016 Ghana Company: Kimathi & Partners Email: kimathi@kimathilegal.com Web: hwww.kimathilegal.com Address: Kimathi & Partners, Corporate Attorneys, No.6 Airport Road, Airport Residential Area Ghana Telephone: +233 (0)2479 60465

Most Innovative Law Firm - Uganda Company: Denis Bono Moro Email: amigodenish@yahoo.com Address: Denis Bono Moro, Uganda Revenue Authority, Nakawa-Jinja Road, Kampala, Uganda Telephone: 00256 41 7440000

Most Innovative Offshore Firms 2016 Company: Aqua Tech Diving Services Email: tracy.nettmann@atds.co.za Web: www.aquatechdivingservices.com Address: 56 Dudley Road (Entrance in Manchester Road) Durban 4052 Jacobs, Durban, Kwazulu natal, 4052 South Africa Telephone: +27 31 301 3631 Most Innovative Law Firm – Mauritius Company: L & P Law Partners Name: Me. Khushal LOBINE Barrister at Law, Lincoln’s Inn LLB (Hons) UK, ACIArb, CILT Email: klobine@barrister.mu Web: www.barrister.mu / www.peeroochambers.com Address: Head Office – 1st Floor, Cross House, 6 Cross Street, Bel Village, Port Louis E-mail: klobine@barrister.mu Telephone: +230 2130925 +230 57661925

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1603JC49

Winners Directory

Spain: Set to Soar Company: Navarro Zarazaga, Javier (sole Practioner) Email: x.navarro.z@hotmail.com Address: n.212, Montserrat de Casanovas, Barcelona, C.P.: 08032, Spain Telephone: 00639158918

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1604WO38

Winners Directory

Most Innovative Law Firm of 2016, Indonesia Company: Ricardo Simanjuntak & Partners Email: ricardo@rsnplawyers.com Web: www.rsnplawyers.com Address: Wirausaha Building, 2nd Floor, Jakarta 12940 Indonesia Telephone: 0062 21 5277715

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Resolving Disputes Through Arbitration 1603JC27

Company: Vardar Hukuk Bürosu Name: Banu Vardar Email: info@vardarhukukburosu.com Web Address: www.vardarhukukburosu.com Address: Atatürk Caddesi No:152/408 Pasaport (35210) İZMİR Telephone: +90 232 483 02 12

Resolving Disputes Through Arbitration More than ever before, companies across the financial landscape are realising the benefits of alternative dispute resolution. With this in mind, we spoke to Banu Vardar, a seasoned arbitrator for Vardar Hukuk Bürosu, and got her insight into how their firm consistently provides for their clients.

Although we provide a highly diverse range of services at Vardar Hukuk Bürosu, my expertise is utilised primarily in national and international commercial and contract law with long-term consultancy experience in Germany and Turkey for foreign clients in Turkey and Turkish clients abroad.

With regards to arbitration, I have represented several international institutions and official legal expert of Ministry of Justice in Turkey for international commercial disputes. Furthermore, I have also provided legal advice and guidance on legal matters relating to commercial issues for foreign and Turkish companies. As a result of my experience, I am also a lecturer and teacher in the fields in both national and international trade law for both graduate and post graduate level courses.

In terms of my qualifications, I have LL. B degrees from Germany and Turkey and LL.M degree in International and European Business Law from Cambridge, UK and PhD (viva) from the University of Leicester, UK. At our firm, the combined expertise of our attorneys means that we can provide a comprehensive range of services for clients, who are predominantly small

and medium-sized enterprises in Turkey and abroad.

This includes assisting Turkish companies in the economic areas of Europe and Middle East, and also assisting foreign companies on the Turkish market.

As well as arbitration, the core competencies in fields that are particularly relevant to SMEs are corporate, M&A, commercial and foreign investment, among many others.

Alongside this expertise, our law firm assists the clients in any matters relating to the negotiation and drafting of contracts as well as the enforcement of contractual claims. In addition to the core competences in the fields of contract law, we are also adept in areas of financial law such as the establishment of new companies, M&A, business transformations and changes to the capital structure as well as due diligence investigations and involvement in negotiations with Turkish, German and foreign partners.

Looking towards the latter half of 2016 and beyond, we are optimistic that our company will continue to grow and prosper. Moreover, as the legal landscape constantly evolves and transforms, we are well equipped to cater for the evolving needs of our clients.

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Adebola Sobanjo & Co Company: Adebola Sobanjo & Co E-Mail: adebolasobanjo@ hotmail.com Phone: 00234 1 8042032

Leading Adviser in Nigeria Adebola Sobanjo & Co is a private company established in 1980 without any foreign equity but with a turnover of $800,000 – 1 million per year. and provides a number of services including: • Auditing; • Taxation & management consultancy; • HR solutions; • Insolvency practice.

Oil is a huge part of the Nigerian economy but the government changed last year due to the general election. The new government has focussed on the economy, moving it away from oil to agriculture and the country is using that to employ more people.

Also, there is high unemployment, so the crime rate is high and there is work to be done in order to improve solid minerals to be exploited, processed and exported.

Major challenges There is no electricity where I am located, so this is an immediate challenge to Nigeria and it has slowed down the industry who suffer because they have to buy a generator and diesel to power it and that of course increases the cost of production. This makes internal production more expensive than external production, but having said that labour costs here in Nigeria are very low. The high cost of production is therefore a major challenge and industry are now trying to utilise the solid mineral now to be a source of income.

The new government are also trying to revive the manufacturing companies but that will require the infrastructures to begin with, but the security of the country is a key factor for example there have been kidnappings and people here in Nigeria are afraid to go from place to place.

Telecommunications Many of Nigeria’s young people are interested in telecommunications and the government is looking into how they can make the country more competent in this area. The country is also looking into how they can put education into a prime position, in terms of Universities and schools, so that the people can be trained in literacy and be given technical education that is relevant to the needs of the people and the industry.

The country is going through a time of reorganisation, re-education, rebuilding and revamping.

Infrastructure however is one problem because the routes are very bad and we need to look into how to improve the roads and the railway. The latter is not doing very well, and the lines have very narrow gauges, so the government is trying to find a way to transport agricultural goods to the urban areas so that people can buy them.

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Opportunities for overseas investors The potential for investment from other countries is huge and the government is doing everything they can in this respect. Our company is ensuring that people are given the guidelines they need and to hold their hands to help them establish their companies without any stress.

In the power sector, the government is looking for people who can partner with them or Nigerian companies. The government allows a company to come in with 30% equity or to have equity in the electricity, solid mineral and agriculture sectors for example. The government is looking not only for raw materials, but also for people.

In the telecommunications sector, Nigeria wants to have industrial city parks and the people to ensure this is done. While the opportunities for overseas investment is huge, there are so many problems that need to be solved. If they are to be solved, then there is every opportunity for this to be done as investors to come into the country.

Staying one step ahead We have started off a number of companies, many of whom have gone on to increase in size. Some of them have established subsibdiaries in other countries and we are a member of VKR International which is an association of accountants and business advisors. We leverage our relationship with them to bring higher quality performance to our services and ulitmately our clients.

As a company, we ensure that our staff are members attend conferences and training at national and international level, to obtain knowledge of best practice, so that when we come back we are in a position to compete with our colleagues. It is good to know about innovation and what is happening in other countries, but more than that we try to ensure that client satisfaction is given a priority.

Our firm is customer centred, and we try to look at how to we can be in the position to compete and ensure that the problem of the client is owned by us.

We try to solve the problem together with the client of course, so they are not alone. Our company stands for a high standard of performance, affordable prices, international best practice for example and with all these aspects combined we are different from others.

Leading Adviser in Nigeria

The future While we were preparing for the elections in 2015, the economy closed down. When the new government came in, they needed to form a new cabinet and get the new government running. So for the most part of last year, operations were very slow for this reason.

But in 2016, it has been very encouraging that the new government has put back the focus back on the economy so that has been a huge opportunity for us as a company. We can therefore see that the future is very bright for Nigeria and our company.

We see our company doubling in size over the next 12 months.

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2016’s Leading Debt Advisory Firms 1603AC15

2016's Leading Debt Advisory Firms Penningtons Manches’ corporate finance team in London is headed by Matt Martin who specialises in debt and capital advisory work. We spoke to him to find out more about the team, and how it is excelling within its highly competitive industry.

Company: Penningtons Manches Name: Matt Martin Web: www.penningtons.co.uk Address: 125 Wood Street, London, EC2V 7AW Phone: +44 (0)20 7457 3000

From our firm’s perspective, 2016 started positively and activity levels are generally high. There is, however, some uncertainty and concern emanating from the global markets and our relationship with the EU. In economic terms, we expect a continued recovery but we suspect it will be modest and uneven. As such, there is an ever growing need for support for businesses to find funding solutions.

Moreover, we are experiencing a lot of deal flow generated between the private equity and ABL players as businesses look for funding.

From our experience, to be successful in this field, you need to understand the industry and the players that work in it. You also need to know what works and what doesn’t and who your clients need to speak to.

Additionally, we need to move really quickly as we are often working in distressed situations, and we need to ensure that our clients are confident that we can cope under these conditions.

In terms of the work we do, our team advises clients on all aspects of their debt and capital needs, assisting borrowers and shareholders in achieving their financing objectives. This can include raising finance, refinancing existing debt facilities, recapitalisations or raising capital is distressed

situations. Alongside these services, we also advise institutions that provide the funding solutions and where a quick disposal is needed, we also specialise in accelerated sale mandates. Generally speaking, our work comes from our client base, the debt advisory community and the funding provider institutions.

As for my experience, I have more than 20 years’ experience across the full range of debt capital markets, including senior debt, second lien, mezzanine, private placements and asset-backed lending (ABL), as well as quasi-equity products such as payment- in-kind (PIK) notes, and in running accelerated sales processes. Over the years, I have gained a strong reputation in the retail space which led me to heading up Penningtons Manches’ Fashion, Luxury and Lifestyle group. My team includes corporate finance, banking and insolvency experts, and we work cross-discipline and across the firm’s core sectors.

A prime example of the work we do was when we acted for All Saints Retail through a series of refinancing and restructuring over a period of years. This included a revolving credit facility for Landsbanki that was refinanced with Kaupthing and Glitnir banks following its collapse. A PIK facility was also issued with those Icelandic banks. Eventually Lion Capital refinanced and acquired All Saints Retail with debt provided by Lloyds Banking Group. The process also included an accelerated sale mandate and constant attendance at all board meetings to advise on the process and the insolvency position.

We also acted for Needle & Thread, a private design-led fashion brand, to secure a capital injection in a distressed situation. The process required up-to-the-minute insolvency advice to the board; an accelerated sale through an administration process; and arrangements with the third party private investor.

Additionally, we have also acted for Lloyds Commercial Finance on over 30 ABL deals including the refinancing of a large private equity backed group of companies requiring bespoke ABL LMA-based documentation.

When working on a particular case, a CEO of an international fashion retail commented: “Matt Martin and his corporate team are simply outstanding in respect of advice, business acumen, work ethic, innovation and on-time delivery.”

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First Quarter Update 1604AC80

First Quarter Update Company: KBS Corporate Web: www.kbscorporate.com Address: Oceanic House, Navigation Park, Waters Meeting Road, Bolton, BL1 8SW Telephone: 01204 555081

KBS Corporate is recognised as one of the UK’s leading providers of company sales services, offering complete project management and consultancy services to shareholders and owner managers who are considering an exit strategy.

We got in touch with them to check out how they got on in Q1.

So far in 2016, we have completed over 50% more deals than in the first quarter of last year, as the UK M&A market has proven to be particularly active. Among the deals was the much publicised acquisition of HCD Group Limited by £3.25 billion turnover Bureau Veritas SA, headquartered in Paris.

Furthermore, UK’s recent budget spelled good news for the M&A industry as Chancellor George Osbourne announced that entrepreneur’s tax relief has been extended to include long-term investors while capital gains tax has been slashed by 8% for all business owners.

Alongside this, entrepreneurs’ relief, which applies to business owners seeking to sell their business, continues to grant eligible owners a preferential capital gains tax rate of just 10% on business gains of up to £10 million. Additionally, the rate of capital gains tax has been reduced by 8% on anything gained after £10 million.

The announcement is good news for both buyers and sellers as it could potentially pave the way for a

new type of mainstream investment, with investors now provided with a greater incentive to invest in SMEs and subsequently benefit from the rewards of a reduced tax liability.

With all of this mind, we are very optimistic about moving further into 2016. Following unprecedented growth at KBS Corporate over the past 24 months, the company has acquired a two-acre business park in Greater Manchester which will become our new home and also provide a base for a business incubator to help high growth companies in the town.

We have also been placing great emphasis on new systems and technologies with the aim to further improve our client experience. Through significant investment, we have recently developed a new, bespoke CRM system which will be adapted and implemented across all brands and departments.

Moreover, we are also in the process of building a one of a kind research engine which will further increase our ability to accurately identify for our clients the best possible acquirers from across the globe.

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Company: Mark-Inventa Co., Ltd. Name: Dušan Djukić, Patent and Trademark Attorney Email: office@mark-inventa.si Web: www.mark-inventa.si Address: Glinska ulica 14, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Phone: 00386 1 4266 503

Mark-Inventa Co., Ltd. is a professional enterprise for the protection of intellectual property rights. We offer our clients full service of representation, from the application of the right to registration and maintenance of the right.

Our key practice areas are trademarks, patents, designs and availability searches in these areas.

Our clients are large foreign corporations and law firms, as well as smaller-medium-sized enterprises and research institutes. About 15% are domestic clients. For our clients we perform services primarily in Eastern Europe, we represent them before the Office of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and with the help of outside lawyers also before Slovenian courts.

In addition to our knowledge and experience, we offer our clients advice in connection with the conclusion of licensing agreements and agreements on transfer of industrial property rights. Our practice includes customs seizures and cooperation with Slovenian customs authorities.

Experiences of Q1 (January-March 2016) On March 26, 2016 the Amending Regulation No. 2424/2015 of the European Parliament and the Council entered into force. The Community trade mark (CTM) has been renamed in “EU Trade Mark” (EUTM) whilst the registry office, “the Office of Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM)” will

now be named “the European Union Intellectual Property Office”(EUIPO).

In the Amended Regulation a new “one-fee-perclass” system is introduced. This means that extra fees are payable after the first class. This is done in order to reduce claims for goods and services not really corresponding to the business needs of the applicant.

One of the most important changes comes in the area of goods and services. Goods and services have to be expressed with clarity and precision to determine the extent of the protection of the trademark. New is Article 28(8) which is a transitory provision to allow owners of trademarks that have the Class Heading to specify what has been the original attention, when they applied for this trademark.

The time limit to file opposition against International Registration designating European Union is now shorter and shall begin 1 month instead of 6 months from the date of publication of International Registration.

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Advantages of Arbitration as a Method of Resolving Franchising Disputes In our last article in AI magazine (February edition) we talked about the impact of disputes in the franchising context and how to minimise the risk of claims being made against you. In this article, we focus on clauses to include in your franchise agreement to best protect both parties should a dispute arise.

In particular, we consider arbitration as a method of dispute resolution which has seen a rise in popularity in relatively recent years.

Name: Sarah Murray, Partner, Dispute Resolution Email: sarah.murray@ stevens-bolton.com

It is never in an organisation’s business plan to become involved in a dispute and, particularly at the outset of a relationship, there tends to be a feeling of optimism about the business going forward.

However, when entering into new contracts (either as franchisee or franchisor) it is important to consider how matters might unfold should you become embroiled in a dispute. This is particularly important in the context of international contracts involving parties from different jurisdictions with different legal systems and possibly cultures.

The majority of commercial contracts will include a ‘Dispute Resolution’ clause as a matter of course.

It should set out how, who, where, which law and when a dispute will be managed. It is worth thinking carefully about each of these considerations before making a decision on each. For example:

Name: Nicola Broadhurst, Partner & Head of Franchising Email: nicola.broadhurst@ stevens-bolton.com

Name: Catherine Penny, Senior Associate, Dispute Resolution Email: catherine.penny@ stevens-bolton.com Web: www.stevens-bolton.com Phone: +44 (0)1483 302264

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How would the parties like to approach any dispute? It might be sensible to have a procedure for doing so before they resort to court action. For example, it is common for a contract to provide for a face to face meeting between the account managers first to discuss the dispute, followed by a meeting between more senior people from both parties if the initial meeting does not resolve matters. Alternatively, you may prefer to provide for mediation of the dispute, either with the assistance of an independent mediator or with a relevant trade body such as the British Franchise Association.

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Who would the parties like to resolve their dispute? Ultimately this comes down to a choice between the courts through ordinary litigation or an arbitral tribunal through the process of arbitration. This is discussed in more detail below.

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Where would the parties like to resolve their dispute? Where the contract is between parties in different countries this is particularly important. It is usual for parties to choose either a country in which one of them is domiciled to resolve the dispute, or alternatively a “neutral” country with which neither of them have a particular connection. If the parties opt for arbitration this decision has particular importance because the “seat” or venue of the

arbitration has implications on the law applied to the process of the arbitration.

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Which law would the parties like to apply to both the contract and any dispute? Again this is important for internationally contracting parties.

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When should a dispute be resolved? Local laws often impose statutory time limits for bringing a claim. For example, under English law a claim for breach of contract must be brought within 6 years of the breach occurring. However, it also allows the parties to agree to vary that time limit and it may be worth stating that any claims must be brought within a shorter period (e.g. 1 year) so as to reduce uncertainty in the event a dispute arises.

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Are there any other issues important to the parties? For example, they may wish to limit liability under the contract to give certainty as to the level of claim that may be made, or to exclude certain types of claim (for example claims for consequential loss or loss of profit).

Litigation or arbitration?

Increasingly more parties are opting to include arbitration clauses in their contracts as a way of resolving disputes. To understand why, below we explain each process and the advantages and disadvantages involved in picking one over the other.

Litigation is the process of resolving disputes through the court system. In England and Wales there are multiple levels of courts presided over by highly experienced judges, dealing with different levels and types of claims.

Arbitration uses a similar process to the courts, but the parties choose the arbitrator(s) (the equivalent of the judge in the courts) and the arbitration is usually conducted under a set of rules published by an arbitral body (for example the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) or the London Court of International Arbitration (“LCIA”)). When picking an arbitrator, it is tempting to choose someone who has sector knowledge relevant to the dispute. However, more important is the arbitrator’s understanding of the legal process and the law that the parties have chosen to apply to the contract. This is because the opportunities

Advantages of Arbitration as a Method of Resolving Franchising Disputes

to appeal an arbitrator’s decision are very limited, which makes the choice of arbitrator a key decision.

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Confidentiality - unlike court proceedings, arbitration is confidential. This is particularly important in the franchising context where protecting the reputation of the brand, and the integrity of the network, is key to the continued success of the business. It also has great advantages if information considered to be confidential is relevant to the dispute; parties can exchange such information without the threat of it being in the public domain.

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Finality - it is generally much more difficult to appeal an arbitral award than a court judgment.

Whether it can be challenged is governed by the law of the seat, but in England there are very limited grounds on which an arbitration award can be appealed. This can be either an advantage or disadvantage of arbitration, depending on whose favour any award is made, but parties on the whole, value the certainty of the arbitral process and the knowledge that once the award is delivered the process is at an end.

Arbitration is considered to be an attractive alternative to litigation for a number of reasons: •

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Enforceability – the enforceability of a court judgment in a foreign country depends on whether the countries concerned have entered into an agreement allowing reciprocal enforcement of each other’s judgments. The rules on this are complex and can lead to uncertain outcomes for parties. In contrast an arbitral award can, in principle, be enforced in any of the 156 countries that have signed up to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.

Neutrality – the parties can choose where the arbitration takes place, which is helpful if there is concern about the independence of courts local to one party. However, choosing the location of the arbitration has implications on the law applicable to the process of the arbitration, and therefore legal advice should be sought on this.

Flexibility – the parties can agree how the arbitration will work including who the arbitrator(s) should be and what procedural rules should apply. In practice the procedure followed is not dissimilar to court proceedings, although the parties can often agree a significantly speedier process than could be provided by the courts.

Arbitration is not suitable for every dispute. Where there are multiple parties, dispute problems can be caused if there are not identical or complementary arbitration clauses in each of the relevant agreements. Further, arbitration can be an expensive process, because parties have to meet the arbitrator’s fees and pay for facilities such as room hire. It is therefore not a suitable process for small disputes (although it is worth noting that court fees have increased significantly with a court fee of £10,000 payable to start a claim of £200,000 or more).

The decisions made about dispute resolution when negotiating a contract are some of the most important parties can make. They can give one party a significant advantage over another if a dispute ever arises, and the repercussions of making the wrong decision could be costly in both time and money. It is therefore worth investing time and thought into the worst case scenario of a dispute right at the beginning of a relationship, to put you on the best possible footing.

Stevens & Bolton LLP is one of the UK’s leading national law firms with 37 partners and over 200 staff, and recently won the award for ‘National/ Regional Law Firm of the Year’ at the Legal Business Awards 2016. We advise a number of the top 100 and other UK FTSE companies, as well as many other substantial international groups. The franchising team, headed up by Nicola Broadhurst, has a broad range of experience in commercial agreements, competition law, intellectual property issues and dispute resolution, including international arbitration. The dispute resolution group has also been shortlisted for ‘Litigation Team of the Year’ at the Solicitors Journal Awards 2016. For further information, contact Nicola, Sarah or Catherine or go to www.stevens-bolton.com

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Htin Kyaw - What Now? 1604AC51

Htin Kyaw - What Now? With Myanmar swearing in its first elected civilian president in 50 years, we spoke to Krishna Ramachandra, Managing Director of Duane Morris & Selvam LLP in Myanmar, who gave us his insight into how this event will shape the financial landscape of the region.

Company: Duane Morris & Selvam LLP / Duane Morris & Selvam (Myanmar) Name: Krishna Ramachandra Email: kramachandra@ duanemorrisselvam.com Web: www.duanemorrisselvam.com Address: 16 Collyer Quay #17-00, Singapore 049318 Telephone: +65 9822 5011 / +65 6311 0033

As a company who has been working in Myanmar for many years, we confidently believe that Htin Kyaw’s election will enable the country to get back to business. Before the elections, foreign investors decided to put their projects on hold and to wait and see whether there would be a smooth transition to the new regime. Htin Kyaw is regarded as a conservative who will not ruffle too much of the ruling military junta’s feathers , and projects will restart and a new wave of foreign direct investment is likely.

Our long track record in Myanmar and our relationships with government officials is the result of many years’ work, and has meant that we are able to provide highly insightful information which enables investors to complete their due diligence on investments and ascertain whether certain investments would be successful. Moreover, our experience of doing high profile deals in Myanmar enables us to best advise our clients on the right course of action to take.

In terms of the work we do, Duane Morris & Selvam LLP is a joint law venture (JLV) between US firm Duane Morris LLP and Singapore firm, Selvam LLC. Our global network has over 700 attorneys based in 27 offices including Yangon, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Shanghai. Our office in Yangon opened in September 2013 as the first US-Singapore JLV, but we have been advising in that jurisdiction for more than a decade.

As a company with offices across the globe, our client base is very international. As you can imagine, we have many Singaporean clients as well as US, European, Chinese, Japanese and other international clients. We also have Burmese clients, in particular First Myanmar Investment Co. Ltd. for whom we have just completed the first listing on the newly opened Yangon Stock Exchange. We are very excited to be involved in such a momentous event, and we are indeed privileged to have won the instruction on this matter in a very competitive environment.

Furthermore, we advised the Myanmar government on transactional and dispute resolution matters which resulted in the firm being the first to receive the Distinguished Service to Myanmar Award from the Attorney General of the Union. In addition, we were invited by the government to open an office in Yangon. We have high calibre foreign and local lawyers on the ground in Myanmar who are fully able to advise on all aspects of local and international law, including general corporate and commercial work relating to foreign direct investment, energy, projects and infrastructure, real estate and employment law.

Our Myanmar office is fairly unique in that it has experienced foreign lawyers coupled with an in-house local law capability, rather than relying on a best friend’s relationship with a local firm. This approach has meant that we are able to provide an efficient and cost-effective service to our clients that offers a onestop-shop for Myanmar legal services.

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Company: JLL Name: Shelley Frost Head of Consulting Email: shelley.frost@eu.jll.com Web Address: www.jll.co.uk/ Address: 30 Warwick Street London W1B 5NH Phone: +44 (0)207 852 4695

Property in the M&A Lifecycle: Get Your Strategy in Place Real estate represents the second largest cost on a corporate balance sheet but all too often it fails to be properly accounted for during mergers and acquisitions or is assessed only in the latter stages of negotiation. The result?

Additional risk, unforeseen costs and strategic realignment at the crucial stages of a deal.

Mergers and acquisitions are vehicles designed to drive efficiency and add value, yet our recent research ‘Successful M&A: capturing value through real estate’ shows that one-in-five companies fail to take property into consideration until the agreement is signed. Instead of this late stage consideration, real estate strategy needs to be involved from the beginning of the M&A process and assessed within the deal strategy at key points to allow decisions to be made with the full amount of information available.

which help companies measure, anticipate and avoid unnecessary costs within the M&A process, without impacting deal timelines.

76 percent of companies involved in a merger or acquisition over the past five years claim to consider real estate an important or critical factor. However, during our research interviews it became clear that a comprehensive review of property had not been conducted prior to the deal in a large number of cases. Businesses talked about their “skeletons in the closet” – the costs, risks and unfit for purpose property strategies which only came to light after the closure of the deal. As a result, these issues then went on to cause long term value problems within the new organisation.

Conventional wisdom during deals dictates a preference for dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s with as few people present as possible, however, widening an M&A team to include property experts, both internal and external, poses no risk to deal confidentiality. There is no reason why robust risk management and confidentiality frameworks can’t apply to real estate just as they would to financial or HR teams and therefore there is no logical or structural reason not to bring real estate in early on and extend these processes to them. In fact, our M&A survey shows that ‘best in class’ companies provide insights across all facets on the deal at the right points in time.

The importance of having a proper real estate strategy in place during a deal therefore cannot be underestimated. If real estate is integrated into the due diligence stage, risks associated with a company’s commitments can be identified and quantified. Crucially, understanding these risks can help influence negotiations.

For many companies, the danger is often not in the operational portfolio but in the non-operational portfolio. Some have mistakenly become locked into long lease terms when they thought they were taking on owned or freehold property. The key here is to study the portfolio’s details properly in advance to get the full picture and to identify areas of concern, for example where an acquisition target has done a saleand-lease-back in advance of the deal.

Carrying out a comprehensive assessment of property commitments at the due diligence stage also allows opportunities for cost-optimisation to be found.

These opportunities, in turn, can help companies maximise their overall return on investment. From portfolio benchmarking to more accurate valuation and forecasting, there are a range of tools available

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A more robust real estate strategy ought to also resonate with an investor’s appetite for efficiency, as a real estate strategy that is aligned to the deal strategy can accelerate both operational objectives in an M&A transaction and business continuity after closure.

Ultimately the timely provision of comprehensive insight and data on real estate portfolios during the due diligence phase means a more robust business case and better assessment of the financial, operational and business continuity risks associated within the M&A process. By understanding the detail of the property portfolios both the acquiring and target company can then make strategic decisions about deal structure with full transparency.

Property in the M&A Lifecycle: Get Your Strategy in Place

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2014 Copperstone Capital.

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Copperstone Capital is an investment management firm founded in 2009 with offices in Moscow, Russia and London, United Kingdom.

We manage wealth for high net worth individuals and institutions through various hedge fund strategies.

16 Sadovnicheskaya Street, Moscow, 115035, Russia T +7 495 988 0010 F +7 495 951 1410 www.copperstonecapital.com

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Answering All the Right Questions for Distribution Network Optimization 1604BW25

Answering All the Right Questions for Distribution Network Optimization In today’s rapidly changing distribution environment, it’s critical for businesses to look inside and outside the box, in order to optimize the entire network as well as warehouse labor and capacity. We got in touch with KOM International, a supply chain consultancy, to find out more.

Company: KOM International Name: Allan Kohl - President Email: ak@komintl.com Web: www.komintl.com Address: 300 St-Sacrement, Suite 307, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2Y 1X4 Telephone: 514-849-4000

Allan Kohl, President of KOM International, warns that “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there” and distribution executives must ask the critical questions up front and then drill into detailed operational data to get the right answers to optimize their network.

Vince states that “AGILE is uniquely effective due to its simultaneous top-down and bottom-up modeling during both acquisition phases.

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Questions should address the following areas: Network Structure: This involves looking at locations, products, clients served, multi-state vs regional, fastslow, service levels.

Layouts and Expansions: This is with regard to timing, size, capacities, slotting efficiency, and labor productivity Storage and Handling Systems: Looking at whether the systems are conventional, mechanized, and automated: ROI, design year.

Customer Assignment and Service Levels: Factors such as having multiple facilities; time, distance and routing need to be addressed.

Product Stocking Locations: Focusing on the regional vs national issue; vendor location, movement, and if they are store friendly.

Inbound: This involves consolidation centers, vendor transport costs, single vs multiple receiving points.

Channel and Product Flow: This is with regard to DSD vs distribution impact, long distance deliveries, seasonal flows.

Service: This involves looking at existing benchmark vs target, modified lead times/delivery days/cut off time Procurement: This is in relation to discounts, allowances, rebates, distributor vs manufacturer sourcing.

“AGILE, a comprehensive modelling process developed and proven in real world network applications is the key to producing excellent and actionable results in this arena; it simultaneously addresses network design, DC design, as well as storage and materials handling system design” advises Vince Canonico, a KOM Senior Partner and logistics network specialist.

During the due diligence, we can model in the face of information gaps; During post-acquisition, we can implement faster than any other methods so that we begin accruing savings sooner.”

Peter Reed, Senior Partner at KOM explains that as Vice President National Engineering at Sobeys Canada, and in collaboration with Vince Canonico, “we relied on the AGILE modelling approach for all of our recent network solutions and improvements.”

Sobeys Canada is a grocery retailer comprising multiple banners including corporate and franchised supermarkets, convenience stores, food wholesale, drug stores, and gas bars, with $24BB in annual volumes across 1,500 locations, 125,000 employees, and a network of distribution centers spanning the country.

Peter goes on to explain how the Sobeys distribution network was developed through the output of AGILE’s detailed and comprehensive multi-level management decision metrics in all critical network areas to be optimized, including: demand and supply planning at the sku-vendor-day and location level; network planning at the facility, product, customer and location level; facility planning to the sizing, staffing, productivity, budgeting and capacity level; transportation planning of lanes, routes, pro forma cash flows; scenario planning with options for growth and trade-offs; financial planning with cost benefit analysis, rankings and risk factors.

Allan Kohl is President of KOM International, a global supply chain consulting firm www.komintl.com; ak@komintl.com; Tel: 514-849-4000 Peter Reed, Senior Partner, is a KOM subject matter expert managing design and implementation projects of conventional and automated systems preed@komintl.com Vincent Canonico, Senior Partner, is a subject matter expert at KOM managing network evaluation, optimization and implementation projects vcanonico@komintl.com

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Why Connexity's Acquisition of Hitwise Is The Future Of Data-Driven Marketing

Company: Connexity Name: Bill Glass, CEO

Marketing has never been more competitive than it is today. Today’s consumers enjoy content across a variety of devices and channels, from browsing social media on their smartphone, to reading articles on their laptop and streaming shows on the television. No matter which option they choose, there’s a good chance they’ll run into multiple advertisements along this journey. This steady stream of stimulation makes it extremely difficult for advertisers and brands to stand out among the crowd and catch consumers’ attention.

In order to break through the noise, many brands use data to identify the right audiences and tailor their creative messaging to resonate with the individual consumer. At its best, data can empower marketers to discover new audiences and reach them at the right time with the perfect message.

The fact is, the possibilities of data-driven marketing have yet to meet reality. Although more data is available to marketers than ever before—whether its a brand’s own first-party website and customer data, or data that can be purchased from third parties— many marketers find themselves drowning in this sea of information. Connecting the dots between your audience data and actual your marketing campaigns is extremely challenging, and often requires advanced technology which can be costprohibitive for brands. A report from Tableau predicts that while analytics tools are on the rise, 2016 will see an emergence of solutions focused on bridging technology and data gaps.

At Connexity, we’ve dedicated ourselves to closing the gap by helping brands discover new audiences and run targeted, data-driven campaigns to activate them under one roof. Our recent acquisition of the online traffic measurement company Hitwise enables brands to gain a rich understanding of their audience; ultimately, combining these audience insights with our data and targeting capabilities will make it easier than ever for marketers to serve customised messages to the right person, at the right time—all in one place.

Marketers Are Facing A Data Disconnect In recent years, companies have sought to leverage their data by using programmatic advertising, an automated ad-bidding technology that allows brands to reach specific groups of customers across a range of websites. The goal of programmatic advertising is to combine data with software to run targeted campaigns, allowing brands to optimize their media spending by seeking out a relevant target audience and advertising to them at a reasonable cost. While

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there have been plenty of success stories, many businesses are still struggling to use programmatic effectively.

For starters, marketers often target demographic audiences that are not precise enough to truly optimize their spending. For instance, if your company manufactures baby food, you might think it’s a good idea to target parents — even though the data shows that 40% of all baby products are actually sold to households without children.

As another example, a sporting goods manufacturer might have data that suggests it should advertise a specific tennis racket to male sports fans between the ages of 18 and 35. While these parameters are better than nothing, such a broad audience guarantees that the company will waste a great deal of money advertising on sports sites its customers never visit, or to consumers who just bought a new racket earlier in the year. Without the right technology and data partners, many businesses do not have the information or the tools necessary to determine which people are truly in their target audience, where those people spend their time and when they will be ready to make a purchase.

Even if marketers are able to uncover these insights, some still don’t have the right technology to put their consumer intelligence to use. Learning more about your customers is imperative, but great audience insights won’t help you if they are siloed from the media planning teams or technologies used to make programmatic ad buys. Until a company’s audience insights and audience activation efforts are smoothly interwoven, it will remain a challenge for marketers reach the right audience segments on a real-time basis.

How Our Hitwise Acquisition Solves These Problems We recently acquired Hitwise, a division of Experian, in order to help customers generate valuable audience insights and seamlessly integrate those learnings into their programmatic campaigns. For

Why Connexity’s Acquisition of Hitwise Is The Future Of Data-Driven Marketing

those who are unfamiliar, Hitwise is a leader in analysing online behaviour and search patterns.

The company collects data from over 7 billion URLs daily to tell its customers where their website visitors have arrived from, what keywords they searched for to reach that site and what device they used to access the URL. Hitwise’s latest AudienceView tool combines this clickstream behaviour information with demographics and consumer research data to create rich consumer profiles. Together, all of this information gives businesses a richer understanding of the many different audiences that make up their customer base.

The combination of Hitwise and Connexity represents a powerful move towards uniting consumer insights and audience activation; our long-term goal is to bring together audience discovery and programmatic targeting in a single, easy-to-operate user interface.

On top of that, the acquisition merges Hitwise’s audience intelligence expertise with the data we collect from how consumers interact with more than 175 million product listings on the shopping websites we own, a group that includes Shopzilla and PriceGrabber.

There is currently no platform on the market able to take businesses from insights to activation in just a few clicks, but we believe Connexity is uniquely qualified to become that innovator. The quality of our panel-based intelligence and shopping data is unparalleled, and we have the talent and technology needed to build a bridge between data and marketing action.

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Managing Your Taxes

Worldwide info@global-taxservices.com

www.global-taxservices.com

The Last Emerging Market

The Last Emerging Market The Law Office of Gheidi & Associates has specialised in the field of corporate and M&A, regulatory compliance, contracts and trade, IP and dispute settlement since 2012. They are young but confident, ambitious and passionate about their work.

Company: Law Office of Gheidi & Associates Name: Nasim Gheidi Email: info@gheidilawoffice.com Web Address: http://gheidilawoffice.com/en/ Address: No. 317, Padideh Building 47, Sarafraz, Beheshti (Abbas Abad), Tehran, Iran Phone: 00 98 21 88173014

The Law Office of Gheidi & Associates, based in Tehran, are highly motivated to achieve their goals so they work with insight and integrity, of which their short but rich history is living proof. Since the dawn of their firm, they have been honoured to cooperate with reputable global corporations doing business in Iran in the airline, information technology & home appliances, construction, pharmaceutical industry and general trading industries as well as international reputable law firms in Central Asia and East Asia.

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The firm has the professional expertise and experience in providing legal services in the following fields:

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Traditional corporate products, including due diligences of Iran-based assets, JV agreements, share purchase agreements, and merger control issues, etc.

Contractual arrangements, trade and regulatory issues.

Companies’ investment strategies in Iran, including relations with regulators and counterparties.

Corporate & finance, energy, public–private partnerships, and banking & finance.

Intellectual property matters Dispute settlements

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