The independent corporate finance advisor Close Brothers GmbH, Germany, responds to the demand of corporate finance advice in the Central and Eastern market. We are happy to announce that Tod Kersten joined Close Brothers GmbH as managing director and head of the new Warsaw office.

Tod has lived and worked in Central and Eastern Europe since 1990. He joins Close Brothers GmbH from Lazard, where he led Lazard´s business in CEE. Tod was jointly responsible for Lazard's Central European practice from 1998 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2009. Highlights included leading Poland's first hostile public takeover (Kalon BV takeover of Polifarb Cieszyn-Wroclaw) in 1999. In addition, he was advisor to Vivendi on Elektrim, to MOL on regional M&A in the oil sector, and to the Czech government on financial sector restructuring. Between stints at Lazard, from 2002 to 2006, Tod was a partner at Enterprise Investors, CEE’s largest and oldest private equity firm.

Tod was appointed US Treasury Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Poland between 1995 and 1997 and received a citation of honour from the Treasury for his leadership on the privatisation of Bank Handlowy.

Tomasz Pietrusinski joined Tod in the Warsaw office as a manager. Tom holds an MBA from Babson College and BBA from University of Massachusetts. He started his career in with Liberty Mutual in a global private equity fund of funds team in 1999. Between 2005 and 2007, he was working in project finance at Textron Financial. Most recently he was with Raiffeisen Investment in Vienna where was advising private equity and real estate clients in M&A processes in CEE.

The Close Brothers GmbH company has already enjoyed success in Central and Eastern Europe. In August 2008 we advised Advent International on the sale of Axtone Railway Components to IK Investment Partners. Axtone is a merger of Kamax, a mid-sized Polish business, and Keystone Bahntechnik. The merged entity is Europe’s largest company in the rail wagon buffer technology and services sector. Other mandates are ongoing. We are currently advisors in the restructuring of BorsodChem in Hungary.

Ernst von Freyberg, founding Managing Director of Close Brothers GmbH comments:” The office opening in Warsaw is an important step for us. Even if our business is very international, it is our philosophy to provide local expertise to our clients. Tod Kersten to us is the perfect connector between the Western and CEE business cultures."