BTD, a global M&A consultancy that provides continuity of thinking, advice and support across the entire M&A life cycle, today announced the hire of Denise Emmanuel as Director in the UK practice and the opening of a new office in Hong Kong, following a strong increase in global demand for the company’s end-to end services.

Based in London, Denise will significantly strengthen the engagement leadership team and support business development and client delivery within the corporates and the private equity community.

Denise joins BTD with more than 15 years’ investment and M&A experience including 10 years in private equity and has developed a strong track record on realised investments and value enhancing post acquisition integration.  Denise’s earlier career includes Corporate Finance Transaction Services at Deloitte before moving to Spirit Capital, a PE fund, as Associate Director.  Denise then worked as Investment Director at Livingbridge for 4 years.   Since 2014, Denise has led the M&A activities of AIM listed company, Plastics Capital plc, from origination to post-deal integration and ongoing advice on strategic initiatives.   This included the project management of the Flexipol Packaging acquisition and subsequent integration work.  Denise continues to be a Non-Executive Director on the Flexipol Packaging board.

Carlos Keener, Founder and Managing Partner of BTD, commented, “On a strategic level, this appointment will enhance our insights into how M&A and integration can be improved for our clients, and our ability to deliver value for them. On a personal level, Denise makes a great addition to the team, and I’m truly looking forward to the opportunity to work together in the future.”

With only 25% of senior management roles held by women in the global financial services industry, BTD is proud to play its part in driving gender diversity across the industry. Denise will be a welcome addition to the global team where more than 43% are women.  According to a recent survey nine out of ten executives wanted to see teams which had more of a gender balance because it can help deliver better quality solutions and also found that women could help consulting teams think more laterally, be faster in developing relationship, be more reflective and better at time and budget keeping.

With offices in London, Frankfurt, Boston and Sydney the new office in Hong Kong will enable the firm to better service the robust M&A scene in the region where the outbound value of M&A activity conducted by Chinese firms has grown at an annual rate of approximately 39% over the past three years and is expected to hit $161bn in 2018.

Keener concluded, “We are pleased with the increasing recognition of the importance of, and demand for, our services in Asia as the M&A market matures in the region; we’re clearly seeing that the early rush of outbound deals ‘of any kind, at any price’ is giving way to a more considered, strategic perspective and mature approach to issues such as post-close integration, cultural and other cross-border considerations, and long-term value creation. This is certainly an exciting time for us and we look forward to working with our clients in future.”