Mark Pacitti appointed new ICAEW Faculty chairman

Mark Pacitti, global leader for corporate finance advisory at Deloitte, is the new chairman of the ICAEW’s Corporate Finance Faculty. He was elected to the post following the Faculty’s AGM on 6 May. He succeeds Giles Derry, who is a partner at mid-market private equity firm Dunedin.

Under Pacitti’s chairmanship, the Faculty will continue to build on its high profile work including increasing the flow of advice to businesses seeking finance for growth via initiatives such as The Business Finance Guide which has been distributed to over three quarters of a million small and medium sized businesses.  The Faculty will also develop the three themes launched at the beginning of 2014: investing in growth, creating new opportunities and developing professional expertise.

Pacitti said: “When it comes to investing in growth, we are seeing a number of new growth capital products which the Faculty will be actively involved in developing. It is also important that Faculty members are equipped to support international M&A, in particular cross-border M&A, which is growing rapidly. Indeed developing ‘deal corridors’ between Europe and international markets (North America, China and Japan) is one of the key priorities for many of our clients at present and we see the UK being at the heart of global M&A deal flows.”

As well as international M&A, Pacitti says acting as the interface between public and private sector investment presents a huge opportunity for corporate finance advisers.

“Whilst our core business is doing transactions for our private sector clients, there is a very significant opportunity to support the public sector. As an economy, we need innovation in funding, and in transaction execution, to support the investment that is required by both the private and public sector. I think the Corporate Finance Faculty and its members will be the crucial bridge between the two.”

Deloitte has been a strong supporter of the Faculty’s Corporate Finance qualifications over the years. All managers and above have the opportunity to take the CF qualifications and join the Faculty.

Pacitti concluded: “The Faculty is justifiably proud of the ICAEW/CISI Corporate Finance Qualifications, which are recognised as the gold standard for corporate financiers. I expect to build membership of the Faculty further across the whole range of experts engaged in corporate finance, lead advisers, investors, lenders, lawyers, due diligence experts, private equity and infrastructure specialists. Ensuring the broad church that is our network continues to be well represented will be our strength for the future.”

David Petrie, Head of Corporate Finance at the ICAEW, said: “It’s another big step forward for the Corporate Finance Faculty to have a global head of corporate finance advisory from a major professional services firm as its chairman. Mark’s considerable experience across a wide spectrum of advisory work will help us a great deal.”

End

Notes to editors

About the Faculty
The Corporate Finance Faculty’s professional network includes 7,000 members and more than 70 member organisations. Its membership is drawn from major professional services groups, specialist advisory firms, companies, banks, private equity, venture capital, law firms, brokers, consultants, policy-makers and academic experts. More than 40 per cent of the faculty’s membership is from beyond ICAEW.

The faculty is ICAEW’s centre of professional excellence in corporate finance. It contributes to policy development and many consultations by international organisations, governments, regulators and other professional bodies.

The faculty developed the first international Corporate Finance qualification (including the ‘CF’ designation) for practitioners and launched a Diploma in Corporate Finance with the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment in 2012.

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.

Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

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