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We build long term partnerships with clients, enabling us to be trusted advisers to corporates throughout their life cycle.
We pride ourselves on our entrepreneurial culture. We always seek innovative ways to get deals done, even in tough markets. Since our inception in the midst of the global financial crisis, Liberum has thrived whilst many other banks have struggled.
Free from the constraints bigger banks face, our structure and collaborative culture ensures our investment bankers are closer to the key investors in the markets that shape sentiment.
Investment Banking in numbers
Corporate Broking
Our Corporate Broking team is entirely focussed on UK Small & Mid Cap, advising 119 listed companies on their capital market strategies.
As a Corporate Broker, our aim is to help our clients build high quality long-term relationships with institutional investors and develop their share ownership, with the ultimate goal of ensuring good liquidity at a fair valuation for the company’s shares. We strive to bring innovative and creative ideas to our clients, helping to develop their businesses at all levels, from daily investor relations to major strategic developments.
Our clients include widely respected companies across 13 sectors of specialism:
- Chemicals / New Energy
- Consumer and Retail
- Financial Services
- Healthcare
- Housebuilders & Building Materials
- Industrials
- Investment Funds
- Leisure
- Mining / Agriculture
- Real Estate
- Support Services
- Technology and Media
- Transport
Corporate Finance
Working in industry specialist teams, we advise public and private companies, and their owners, on all aspects of corporate development from mergers and acquisitions, disposals, restructurings, refinancings, and capital distributions.
We are approved to act as Sponsor to Main Market companies and Nominated Adviser to those admitted to trading on AIM.
We combine technical expertise, innovative solutions and access to our extensive network of institutional relationships to help our clients achieve their strategic goals.
Equity Capital Markets
We are a leading adviser to ECM deals in the Small & Mid Cap space, having raised £26bn since our inception for our clients.
We’ve acted on 59 IPOs since 2007 and were No.1 for AIM IPOs in 2018, raising £418m of capital as sole bookrunner.
Raising capital in all market conditions requires hard-earned relationships with investors, built over time and rooted in trust. It demands an intimate understanding of a company’s business and ambitions, and the ability to match and source the right pools of capital for each investment opportunity.
M&A
Our M&A team is involved in merger and acquisition transactions and is led by senior industry professionals with deep commercial and technical expertise in all types of M&A. We leverage Liberum’s capital markets insights and strong corporate and institutional relationships to provide market leading advice.
Our clients include listed and unlisted corporates, entrepreneurs, private equity, family offices and hedge funds.
Areas of expertise include:
- Takeover Code regulated buy side, sell side, defence, Rule 3, mergers, reverses and take privates (including management/Newco advisory)
- Private company buy side, sell side, corporate carve out, management buy in/out
- Distressed M&A buy side and sell side
- Transaction related financing and capital structure advisory
- Dual/triple track processes
- Acquisition search and shareholder value optimisation working across all industry sectors
- Shareholder activism strategy and execution
Our fundraising achievements
Investment Banking Senior Management
Richard Crawley
Chairman, Investment Banking
Richard joined Liberum in 2013. He has over 30 years of experience, gained at Charterhouse, Credit Suisse, Oriel Securities and most recently, at Espirito Santo.
Dru Danford
Head of Investment Banking
Dru is Head of the Investment Banking team at Liberum, having joined in November 2022.
Mark Harrison
Co-Head, M&A, Investment Banking
Mark joined Liberum in July 2021 as Co-Head of M&A from his own boutique corporate finance firm.
Tim Medak
Co-Head, M&A, Investment Banking
Tim joined Liberum in July 2021 as Co-Head of M&A from his own boutique corporate finance firm.
Clayton Bush
Investment Banking Managing Director
Clayton joined Liberum in 2008 from Canaccord, having previously worked for Credit Lyonnais, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and PWC.
Chris Clarke
Investment Banking Managing Director
Chris joined Liberum in 2015 and has over 14 years of corporate finance and equity capital markets experience.
Andrew Godber
Investment Banking Managing Director
Andrew is a member of the Investment Banking team having joined Liberum in September 2018.
Nicholas How
Investment Banking Managing Director
Nick joined Liberum in June 2021 as a Managing Director in Investment Banking focused on the Business Services, Transport and Industrials sectors.
Max Jones
Investment Banking Managing Director
Max joined Liberum in February 2023 as a Managing Director in Investment Banking focusing on the Technology and Media sectors.
Scott Mathieson
Head of Resources & New Energy
Scott joined Liberum in June 2020 after 6 years in the Corporate Finance team at finnCap.
Phil Walker
Head of Healthcare
Phil joined Liberum in January 2022 as Head of Healthcare Investment Banking, having been an Investment Banker to Healthcare/Life Science companies for over 20 years.
John Fishley
Investment Banking Director
John joined Liberum in 2015 from Market Tech Holdings, where he was responsible for the project management of its successful £750m IPO on AIM.
Lauren Kettle
Investment Banking Director
Lauren joined Liberum in July 2020, after over 5 years with the corporate finance team at N+1 Singer.
Richard Lindley
Investment Banking Director
Richard joined Liberum in October 2020 after over 8 years in the Corporate Finance team at N&1 Singer.
Edward Mansfield
Investment Banking Director
Edward joined Liberum in January 2022 after 13 years in the Investment Banking team at Shore Capital.
Jamie Richards
Investment Banking Director
Jamie Richards joined Liberum in 2013 and is a Director on the Investment Banking team.
Darren Vickers
Investment Banking Director
Darren joined Liberum in April 2021 as an Investment Banking Director.
Benjamin Cryer
Investment Banking Director
Ben joined Liberum in May 2021 as a member of the Investment Banking team.
Edward Thomas
Investment Banking Director
Ed joined Liberum in January 2019 and is a member of the Investment Banking team.
Thought of the week – From too much research to too few start-ups
Over the last two weeks, I have used my Wednesday notes to explore the lack of productivity growth in recent decades. Last week, we saw how the amount of research produced in technology, engineering or medicine has grown enormously, but research productivity (in the sense of creating new ideas) has seen a steady decline. As I will show today, this seems to be a major driving force that holds back job creation and productivity growth in the real economy as well.
Thought of the Week - The impact of ESG scandals
ESG scandals are (luckily) a rare thing. If we rely on the RepRisk Relative Risk Indicator, risk ratings in excess of 25 points happen only in one in 200 companies. And as I have reported here, RRI readings of 35 or above become existential threats to their CEOs. But once a company experiences an ESG scandal, it has significant and lasting consequences, not only for the company but also its peers.
Thought of the Week - Winning the global loser’s game
Charlie Ellis pointed out in his famous book “Winning the Loser's Game” that one of the best ways to outperform the market in the ‘investment game’ is not to pick winners but to avoid the losers, i.e. assets that drop sharply in price.
Thought of the week – The cost of the Peter Principle
It’s February and at many companies where I have worked that means it is time for promotions. It is the time when valued employees are given new and expanded responsibilities in managing teams. And it is peak time for the Peter Principle, i.e. the principle that people are promoted to their individual level of incompetence.
Thought of the week – Interest rates vs. earnings in 2023
A while ago, I wrote a note that claimed that changes in bond yields and inflation are much more important than changes in earnings for equity market returns – at least over shorter timeframes like 12 months.
