Team

Julian Bennet joined Augusta & Co in February 2009. He previously worked at Morgan Stanley, where he focused on M&A and Capital Markets transactions in the MENA region. Prior to this, he spent a year in the Investment Banking Division at HSBC working on Media & Telecoms and General Industrials advisory. He has been based in both London and Dubai. Julian graduated from Oxford University in 2005 with a degree in the Classics.

Hartmut has 14 years of experience in private equity and corporate finance. He joined from Frankfurter Beteiligungs-Holding, where he was working in investing private equity in distressed and restructuring situations. Prior to that, he worked for the private equity team of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and London, having trained with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and New York. He graduated from the University of Karlsruhe with a Degree in Business Administration and Industrial Engineering.

Kate Earl joined Augusta as the company’s Management Accountant in September 2009. Kate has 8 years’ accounting experience having worked in various roles in a large Australian construction engineering firm, McConnell Dowell. Kate is currently studying towards completion of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). She speaks intermediate German.

John Edwards has over 20 years' experience of providing corporate finance and M&A advice to clients on mid-market transactions. Until December 2009, he was a partner of Augusta, having joined the firm in early 2007 to lead the UK M&A practice. John continues to spend the majority of his time on Augusta business, with a particular focus on M&A in the UK market and on raising capital in the waste management arena. After qualifying as a chartered accountant, he joined Hill Samuel Bank where he became a director of Hill Samuel Securities and then joined Close Brothers Corporate Finance where he was a Director. For the 4 years prior to joining Augusta, he was a Managing Director of Amethyst Corporate Finance.

Justin FitzHugh spent 6 years in Industrials M&A/IB at JPMorgan in London, where he worked on a broad range of private and public sector transactions including United Technologies' acquisition of Chubb plc. After JPMorgan, he gained an MSc (with Distinction) in Energy Policy from Imperial College London before moving to ILEX (now Pöyry) Energy Consulting, where he worked on management and economic consulting projects in the power sector. He joined Climate Change Capital at the start of 2006, working on project finance, private equity and M&A mandates across the clean energy and carbon credit sectors. He joined Augusta in August 2008.

Benjamin joined Augusta in June 2008 from Evercore Partners where he was a member of the European advisory team. At Evercore he advised prominent multi-national corporations on strategic financial transactions. Benjamin has experience with merger & acquisition, debt advisory and restructuring mandates across multiple industries. He has also worked extensively on equity placements for renewable energy companies. He graduated in 2006 from the London School of Economics with an LL.B (Honours) in Law.

Chester joined Augusta in June 2010 and performs the role of Finance Director. He has over 10 years of experience in audit, financial reporting, transaction support, financial management and control. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has held managerial positions at Ernst & Young and Hastings Funds Management Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Westpac Banking Corporation in Australia. Chester holds a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Accounting and Finance from the University of Melbourne.

Charlie joined Augusta & Co in January 2011 having spent the past three years as a senior wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London. Charlie was responsible for the company’s offshore wind research and managed several consulting projects for utility, oil and financial clients. He graduated from the London School of Economics in 2007 where he completed his BSc. (Honours) in Environmental Economics.

Joanna joined Augusta in October 2011 to focus on capital markets structuring and placement. Before joining Augusta she was part of the structured products and debt advisory team at Amias Berman, London. Joanna graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English Literature, during which time she completed several summer internships in DCM at Citi Group. She speaks intermediate Russian.

Patrick joined Augusta in May 2010 with over 7 years of Investment Banking and Restructuring experience. At Citigroup in London, he was a member of the Transport, Infrastructure and Utilities investment banking teams, where he worked on a broad range of public and private market transactions. Patrick’s sector experience includes, among others, deals in shipping, aviation, logistics, materials, business services, waste management and power generation and distribution. With a strong focus on growth companies and emerging markets, he is experienced in working with owner operated businesses and entrepreneurial management teams. Before joining Augusta, Patrick was responsible for the negotiations and restructuring efforts for his family’s business ventures in Turkey. Patrick is a graduate of the European Business School (ebs), Oestrich Winkel, and Hong Kong University. He is a native German and French speaker and has working knowledge of Turkish.

Joachim Koolmann joined Augusta & Co in May 2010 to concentrate on restructuring and debt advisory. He has more than 20 years experience in structured finance, high yield capital markets, leverage finance and most recently distressed debt principal investments.

He joined from Bear Stearns/JP Morgan and before that Deutsche Bank, London where he was responsible for the origination and structuring of distressed debt principal investments. Before Deutsche, he worked for Dresdner Kleinwort in various positions including Co-Head of European Leverage Finance as well as Bankers Trust and Morgan Guaranty Trust of New York. Joachim has a degree from Bankakademie, Frankfurt and speaks German.

Griselda joined Augusta as the Renewables Team Secretary in January 2009, having previously worked at BMW in Munich and Xchanging plc in London. Griselda has a BSc degree from Surrey University in German, European Studies and Swedish. Griselda speaks fluent English and German and intermediate Swedish.