Mazars appoints Jack Clipsham to lead growth of Asia-Pacific Corporate Finance services
Jack has over 20 years of corporate finance experience, covering a wide range of sectors including several high profile deals in both a lead advisory and a transaction support capacity. In 2004, he was involved in the first listing of a Chinese mainland business on AIM and has since acted as reporting accountant on a further ten listings of East and South East Asian businesses. He has also undertaken a number of financial due diligence and lead advisory projects, including the recent acquisition of a UK manufacturing group by a Chongqing-based, Hong Kong Listed, State-controlled company, again the first transaction of its kind. In addition to China and Hong Kong, his work over the last six and a half years has seen him advise a number of companies from Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. In 2009 Jack was voted East and South East Asia Adviser of the Year in the ACQ Country awards.
Commenting on his appointment, Jack says: “The role is a fantastic opportunity to be a driving force in Mazars’ expanding Asia-Pacific corporate finance activities. The firm’s presence in the region has shown incredible growth in the last five years and its absolute commitment to further developing its offices in the region really stands out. Moreover, the tightly integrated nature of the international partnership will make it very easy to work effectively with offices in different locations and to provide best advice to our clients. I’m really looking forward to working with the team, as well as further exploring the opportunities that this incredibly vibrant region has to offer.”
John Mellows, head of Mazars Asia-Pacific region, adds: “We are extremely pleased to welcome Jack to the team. He has a very impressive level of experience and expertise that will be of great benefit to our clients as we continue to move forward with our growth programme. Jack will remain in London for the first year to allow him to develop strong relationships with Mazars’ European offices and clients. The major opportunities however are in the region itself, and his move here will allow him to pursue them more easily.”
He added: “This region is wide open to a firm such as Mazars. We also believe that as the various exchanges in the region mature and grow in confidence that more companies will seek to float on Asian exchanges. Liquidity and pricing are clearly key to such a development but this will improve over the coming years. We are moving into a very exciting period for corporate finance activity in Asia and Mazars is well placed with Jack and his team to take advantage of it."
Prior to joining Mazars, Jack was for ten years a partner at BDO Stoy Hayward in the UK, most recently in charge of inbound and outbound corporate finance services for East and South East Asia. Having trained and qualified at Ernst & Young, Jack spent time with Guiness Mahon, the merchant bank, before returning to the profession, becoming a partner with Pannell Kerr Forster before joining BDO Stoy Hayward