More experts have been added to the panel which is set to discuss the outlook for 2023 and issues impacting the Scottish deal-making industry.
The return of Insider's Business Breakfast event on 24 January, in partnership with law firm CMS, will see a keynote speech from Willie Watt, chair of the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB).
Watt retired from leading investment manager Martin Currie for 19 years at the end of 2019, in order to take on the chairman's role at the new national development bank.
Previously, he spent 16 years with the 3i Group, latterly as managing director responsible for the company’s Scottish and Irish businesses; focussing on venture capital, energy and mid-market buy-outs. Since 2016 he has been a member of the advisory board of Scottish Equity Partners, as well as a board and audit committee member at the National Galleries of Scotland.
Overseeing SNIB for the first few years of its existence, Watt will provide insight into how its investment approach has been developed, how he sees its mission-led philosophy evolving and the role it plays alongside private sector funders in Scotland.
He will then join the other guests for a debate and Q&A session.
This will delve into a range of relevant topics, including cost crisis challenges and opportunities in the M&A market, how the transition to net zero is changing company dynamics, the continued problems with staffing and skills across a range of sectors, and a look at what the future holds in terms of the wider economy, political situation and recovery from the pandemic.
The panel discussion will be hosted by Rona Dougall, a Scottish broadcast journalist and television presenter who was in charge of the last business breakfast in 2020.
She currently acts as a main anchor on STV and BBC current affairs programme Scotland Tonight.
On the panel will be Frank Fowlie, a corporate partner in the Aberdeen office of CMS and a member of its energy and climate change group.
He has experience in all aspects of corporate work, but particularly in deal-making relating to energy service companies and upstream oil and gas companies. Fowlie has advised on all aspects of restructuring mandates for companies, as well as acting in reductions of capital, schemes of arrangement and s.110 reorganisations.
Another panellist is Sarah McIntosh, managing director of Muirhall Energy, where she has worked her way up over the last three years, after joining as head of legal in 2019.
She was previously a partner at Ennova Law in Edinburgh, and before that a commercial solicitor at Warners.
Muirhall Energy’s first wind farm was built in 2002 following the acquisition of the Muirhall Farm in South Lanarkshire. Continued growth saw the 15 turbine Tormywheel Windfarm constructed in 2017, with more than 140MW of onshore wind capacity installed so far, and a further 1.2GW of renewable projects consented or in planning across Scotland, England and Wales.
She will be joined by Adam Maitland, director at Hutcheon Mearns, who joined the firm in 2017 to lead the corporate finance and strategic advisory offering. He has more than 15 years of corporate development and transaction related experience, ranging from investment banking to in-house corporate development for a private equity-backed oilfield services group.
Maitland was previously part of PwC’s energy services corporate finance offering in the UK, and before that was in-house corporate development for Reservoir Group, responsible for developing, executing and delivering the group’s strategic plans.
The Deals and Dealmakers busines breakfast will run from 8am to 10am at the Ardoe House Hotel in Aberdeen. For more information and to book your place in the audience, click here.
