We are extremely proud of the successful business Opus has established since its inception at the beginning of 2007 and of the outstanding team of professionals it has built over that time. It has been a period of enormous change and opportunity

While the firm remains generalist and undertakes a wide range of corporate finance assignments, it has developed deep knowledge and domain expertise in certain key sectors:

• Energy Transition & Climate Change – sustainability has been at the core of what Opus has done since its foundation when it worked closely with Carbon Trust. It has steadily built a market-leading team. It has completed over 30 deals in this space including 7 during the course of 2021 such as the sale of the Electric Highway for Ecotricity, or the sale of Baringa’s Climate Change Scenario Model to BlackRock.

• Chemicals & Ingredients – while a relatively new area for Opus, Chris Carlisle and his team have already had a significant impact. They have completed a number of notable deals such as Bain and Cinven’s acquisition of Lonza Specialty Ingredients and AEA’s acquisition of Verdesian. A particular focus for the team is agrochemicals and the transition to sustainable chemistry, which fits well with our overarching theme of sustainability.

• Built Environment – this is a key sector for Opus where we it completed many deals over the years including the recent sales of Rendall & Rittner, and of Busworks. The business includes a focus on PropTech and emerging construction and management business models such as modular construction and the private rental sector.

• Financial Services – its particular focus is on asset and wealth management where a notable recent transaction was the sale of Pensions Infrastructure Platform to Foresight Group. ESG products are dominant in asset management as is the rapidly growing alternatives space, in which infrastructure and real estate are key sub-sectors. These themes link its activities to other sectors of Built Environment and Energy Transition & Climate Change.

• Industrial Technologies & Services – this sector covers a wide range of businesses with a particular focus on technologies and business models driving productivity and efficiency gains. The sale of DEXMA Sensors, an AI driven energy efficiency software business, exemplifies this and shows the links between key sector themes.

Complementing these sector activities are its specialist skills in public markets and private special situations. It is unusual among firms of Opus’ size in having extensive public markets experience and it advises on IPOs, public market equity issuance and takeovers under the City Code. Its private special situations practice works on often complex, multi stakeholder engagements where considerable structuring is required and governance processes may need to be evolved.

Opus remains keen to recruit partners with an outstanding track record in sectors complementary to its franchise and for whom Opus could provide a unique economic springboard.

Its membership of Mergers Alliance continues to broaden the opportunities available to an internationally experienced partner group.