Lincoln, Peters forge global mid-market initiative

The globalisation play is no longer solely the domain of the Fortune 500. Increasingly companies in the mid-market and below have had to respond to the encroachment of foreign competitors on their turf, and to do that have either had to engineer their own international strategies or sell out to a global player. In response to that mandate, Chicago-based investment bank Lincoln Partners has merged with Frankfurt’s Peters Associates, creating an international advisor with a footprint in Chicago, New York, Frankfurt and Paris. The new, combined company will be called Lincoln International.

If you look back ten years ago, companies didn’t have to be global…But today, even in the mid market, private equity has become a global industry”. Robert Brown, managing director, Lincoln International

Part of the merger also incorporates the former France-based M&A advisory team of KPMG. The group had been closely linked to Peters following its spinout from the accounting firm, but will now be rolled into the Lincoln International platform.

Robert Brown, a managing director at Lincoln, cited the new foreign affiliates of American Capital Strategies and Riverside Company as examples of the push for globalisation among mid-market groups in the US. He told PEO that the merger will allow the combined firm to address the needs of clients that operate in cross-border transactions.

“If you look back ten years ago, companies didn’t have to be global,” Brown said, adding, “But today, even in the mid market, private equity has become a global industry”.
 
The combined firm has 100 professionals, split roughly in half between the US and Europe. Lincoln head Jim Lawson and Peters’ chief Hans Peter Peters will serve as co-chairmen of Lincoln International.

For Peters, the deal helps the firm differentiate itself from other mid-market players in Europe who do not have the integrated global structure of Lincoln International. This is important as US buyout groups continue to move into European markets. “From our perspective, we started looking internally about a year and a half ago, and realised that we needed to aggressively serve the private equity market,” Peters told PEO.
 
The merger between the two is just the first step in building an international group, and the firm will look to further expand its global reach. Brown noted that future deals could give Lincoln International an integrated presence in areas such as Tokyo, China or India.

No terms of the merger were disclosed.