Duo

Melvyn Darmanin and Damian Psaila are close to inseparable. In fact, even for this interview, they were both late, together! But the work chemistry between them is palpable and they even finish off each other’s sentences.

By profession, Melvyn describes himself as a financial advisor whereas Damian is an accountant.

“We both joined NOUV together at the start of 2020, but we had been working together since 2013 Today, we manage NOUV’s advisory pillar known better as 36 N Capital where we assist companies in raising capital, identifying funding opportunities for their investment, we help them negotiate with other businesses and we seek to identify potential acquirers or joint ventures,” explains Melvyn

Damian adds that the work they do most times goes further than that

“Being in the advisory sector, we deal a lot in corporate finance services, we come up with valuations, financial projections as well as transaction advisory services where we assist with mergers and acquisitions and provide related services such as financial due diligence Currently we are also doing a lot of work related to Malta Enterprise and EU schemes.

But we also find ourselves doing a lot of one-off jobs that normally would not fall under any specific pillar such as coordination of bids and proposals and other procurement related jobs.”

“But currently the thing that is keeping us most busy is capital raising and all the work related to the schemes launched periodically,” adds Melvyn

“We basically have to be the ones taking the initiative by seeing what there is on offer and approaching clients to guide them as to which schemes would most benefit them This is why our work requires us to be constantly in contact with our clients so that we know what their projects and aspirations are so that we can offer them the opportunities that suit their projects.”

Both Damian and Melvyn speak very passionately about their work, and they clearly take it very seriously especially from the way they describe the challenges involved.

“When we deal with clients and pass on what we know, we are practically selling them the knowledge and the insight that we have been gathering over the past ten years in our job Loan applications and schemes for example, are far more complicated than what clients think. They think it’s a matter of filling up a couple of forms, but the collation of information and the preparation of business plans and financial projections is very time-consuming and involves several meetings and a lot of time spent researching,” says Damian

“Clients sometimes try to cut corners and this is an attitude that sometimes comes from other third party service providers We are different and if we’re going to do work for a client, we want to do the best job possible. After all, any client, no matter how big or small, expects the best service” adds Melvyn

Sitting with both of them and listening to them speak brings out the closeness of how they work

“Melvyn goes into all the detail and he’s very sharp I, on the other hand, am a numbers guy, I like to work fast and love working on models. But experience has taught us how to be flexible in our work because ours entails a lot of one-off jobs with constant overlaps between services and industries This can be quite challenging but we became immune and we support each other all along,” says Damian

They both agree that the biggest challenge of their work is generating more business.

“If this was a shop and we opened our shutters every morning, nothing would happen and no one would come in. It is us who have to keep meeting new clients to bring more work and this is not always easy It becomes easier once we remain in touch with our clients because then, we recognise where the opportunities are,” they added

At NOUV, Damian and Melvyn have found their natural home.

“These past two years have been very exciting and we have been actively witnessing the massive changes that NOUV has been going through. From a small apartment in St Julian’s, we are now in these large new premises, we saw the merge with Tuning Fork, and we are about to experience more growth with a new acquisition All this is very positive and we can only feel proud to be part of this organisation,” they concluded