Eric Ward joins Partner team of Drake Star Partners in London

24 May 2018 Consultancy.uk

Corporate finance consulting firm Drake Star Partners has appointed Eric Ward to its Partner team. Ward, a former Managing Director with Stella Capital Advisors, has deep M&A experience and has been involved in a number of major deals, including the sale of Bol.com, and capital raises for the likes of Tesco subsidiary dunnhumby.

Serving the technology, media and communications sectors (TMC) with offices in New York, London, Paris, Munich, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, Amsterdam, Geneva and Tokyo, Drake Star Partners focuses on M&A and corporate finance for its clients on a global basis. Drake Star Partners has completed over 300 transactions since 2004, 70% of which were cross-border deals.

As the global consultancy works to strengthen and expand its capacities in the UK, the firm has appointed senior investment banker Eric Ward a Partner in the firm’s London office. Ward has over 15 years of M&A and industry experience, with a distinct focus on e-commerce and digital marketing, including retail tech, ad tech, martech, analytics and AI.

Most recently this saw Drake Star’s new Partner work as a Managing Director with Stella Capital Advisors. Over a five-year spell at the group, Ward oversaw a number of substantial transactions, including advising Honeycomb on its merger with Group IMD, guiding Hitfox Group (Berlin) through its secondary sale of shares in Finleap, Anatwine on its fundraising and subsequent sale to Zalando. Ward also advised dunnhumby, a subsidiary 100% owned by retail giant Tesco, on its acquisition of Sociomantic.

Prior to this, Ward spent over three years with goetzPartners Corporate Finance, where he became a Director in Digital Media before exiting in 2012. During that time, the firm assisted in a number of transactions as well, including the sale of Absolute Radio's content delivery network business to Ipercast, and the sale of rapidly growing ecommerce platform Bol.com to Cyrte Investments, both 2009. Prior to that, he worked at M&A advisory firm Greenhill & Co and Deutsche Bank, focussing on digital.

Marc Deschamps, Executive Chairman at Drake Star Partners, commented, “Eric brings a wealth of experience to our London office and to our global senior team. His sector knowledge in e-commerce and digital marketing coupled with his deep understanding of the key value drivers for companies, ecosystem of investors and buyers in these verticals, will prove to be immensely valuable to Drake Star Partners and to our clients globally, especially as we propel our firm into its next growth stage.”

Eric Ward himself said of his new role, “I am thrilled to join a technology-focused investment bank with an already impressive global track-record in marketing technology, e-commerce and the broader technology, media and communications sectors. Drake Star is ideally positioned as a partner of choice to our clients given our deep industry coverage in both the US and European markets.”