Transaction experience

While at RBS and Virgin Money I led and completed transactions across venture debt, structured finance, private-equity-backed acquisitions and leveraged growth funding.

In the venture debt market, I completed the largest transaction ever executed by the Virgin Money Venture Debt team in its 13-year history. More broadly, I have closed venture and growth financings across sectors including technology, healthcare and aviation, often in situations where traditional cashflow or asset backing was limited. Within structured finance and private equity-backed environments, I have worked on a wide range of MBOs, acquisitions and leveraged transactions.

Examples include funding for a university campus expansion, a housing association building hundreds of homes, and a fishing business acquiring vessels — alongside numerous PE-backed and corporate transactions across myriad sectors.

My work typically sits in the £1m–£10m range for venture and growth deals, and up to £25m+ in structured and leveraged finance. I focus on transactions where complexity, risk or time pressure require senior judgement rather than formulaic execution.

Working at the edge of lender appetite

Many of the most challenging transactions I have completed have sat at the fringes of lender appetite. These are deals where there is a viable route to completion, but only if risks are identified early, addressed in depth and mitigated credibly.

That work involves rigorous sensitivity analysis, thoughtful structuring, covenant design, risk pricing and — critically — professional presentation. Where information quality or reporting is weak, I work with management teams to raise it to lender standard. Where sponsors are inflexible or cashflow is constrained, solutions may involve balance-sheet cash, phased funding, cost mitigation or revised economics.

Borderline transactions fail when they are rushed or poorly framed. They succeed when credit can see the work has been done properly and in good faith.

Credit-side credibility

I have worked directly with UK clearing banks, challenger banks, debt funds and specialist lenders, and across adjacent products including asset finance, invoice discounting, bridging finance, mezzanine and unitranche structures.

I have written, reviewed and rewritten credit papers, presented directly to credit committees — including in-person at Managing Director level — and built long-standing credibility with multiple credit teams. My objective has always been simple: when a paper lands on credit’s desk with my name on it, they know it has been fully thought through before they read it.

While at Virgin Money, I maintained a 100% success rate at final credit approval for transactions that passed first-stage credit, across a two-stage credit process. That track record allows me to give clients confidence early, significantly reducing the risk of spending months on a transaction that ultimately does not complete.

Skills & Approach

My core strengths are credit analysis, financial modelling, risk mitigation and negotiation. I work closely with legal advisers on documentation, focusing on the commercial implications of terms while ensuring legal robustness sits with the lawyers.

Where I differ from many advisers is in combining technical depth with a human approach. I am able to translate a management team’s commercial reality into lender language — and just as importantly, manage the personal dynamics of credit decision-makers. Trust, judgement and communication still matter in lending, even in highly technical transactions.

QUESTIONS?

Most of my clients start with an off-the-record chat. Feel free to get in touch.