Deals

Barclays' Coles back in business with Actis

After a year on the sidelines studying for a master's degree in international development, Chris Coles is joining the emerging markets private equity firm Actis.

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Actis, a UK emerging market manager, has hired Chris Coles, Barclays Capital former head of European leveraged finance.

It said Coles would enhance the firm’s existing risk management capabilities, assist with larger deal sourcing and debt financing and provide ongoing portfolio management support.

Coles has spent the last twelve months on sabbatical from investment banking, completing a master’s degree in international development.

Paul Fletcher, Actis’s senior partner, said: “His broad risk management, financing and commercial experience will help to enhance the dynamics of our investment teams across the firm, enabling us to further realise our ambitions.”

Coles was 11 years at Barclays Capital in London, where he founded the firm’s leveraged finance business, helping build the bank into a loans powerhouse in Europe. He served on the firm’s management committee from 2002.

Before joining Barclays Capital, he worked for SG Warburg and was also Group Treasurer of WPP Group in the early 1990s.