QM to quit Edinburgh for London

Business Correspondent/Personal Finance Editor

Friday 27 July 2012

Quayle Munro (QM), the investment bank founded in Edinburgh 30 years ago, is withdrawing from the capital to focus on London.

OUTGOING: Quayle Munro's Edinburgh managing director Rob Cormie has resigned. Picture: Nick Mailer

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SIMON BAIN

But it has agreed in principle a management buyout (MBO) with four Edinburgh-based directors of its infrastructure team, successor to QM's original business advising on privatisations and private finance initiatives.

Edinburgh managing director Rob Cormie has resigned from the group to set up an advisory business in his specialist area of renewable energy.

QM, which becomes a corporate finance boutique with an Alternative Investment Market listing, has 20 professionals in London and 12 in Edinburgh. In March it posted a £390,000 first-half loss but said the full-year result would be satisfactory. It also reported "working with a number of bidders for Non-Profit Distributing infrastructure projects in Scotland and consolidating our leading position in the higher education sector with a wide range of ongoing projects".However, in June the group's shares sank to a three-year low when it warned that transactions and associated revenues in the second half would be significantly lower than in the first, triggering a likely pre-tax loss. The board said yesterday it had "taken the decision to focus the group's activities on its successful London-based corporate finance business, having concluded that Quayle Munro's Edinburgh-based business is no longer core to the group's operations and is not viable in its current structure". Agreement for an MBO of the project advisory business had been reached in principle and "should the transaction complete as expected, Quayle Munro will retain a minority shareholding in the new company".A source close to the company said: "The Edinburgh business has been loss-making for some time."The group said Mr Cormie joined QM in 2008 and became an executive director in 2010. "During this time he established and built a successful renewable energy practice," it added. "Rob wishes to pursue a number of commercial opportunities in the renewable sector, the first of which is to establish his own advisory firm, Edinburgh Advisers LLP."Andrew Adams, who took over as chief executive at QM only four months ago, said: "The proposed sale of our project advisory business to the management team is a positive development for Quayle Munro. "We will now have a sharper focus to our corporate finance business, with a lower cost base, and we are optimistic about the prospects in this area."Mr Cormie, who formerly worked in KPMG's energy team, said: "The renewable sector is my passion and the opportunity to build a focused advisory practice has always been my ambition."Quayle Munro shifted its emphasis to London and to the wider advisory market in 2007, when it joined forces with former Barings director Peter Norris, and subse- quently brought in his former colleague Andrew Tuckey, who steps down as QM chairman in November. Mr Adams arrived with the later acquisition of the Van Tulleken boutique, while QM's historic investment portfolio has been wound down since the retirement in 2010 of co-founder and 15% shareholder Ian Jones, though it still holds 22% of private housebuilder Morris Group.

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QM to quit Edinburgh for London

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