Corporate finance advisory firm, Continuum has hired Patrick Lawther and Cody Nissan to enhance its capabilities in the wealth, pensions, asset management, and financial services data and digital sectors.
The firm, which launched in 2022, said that Patrick Lawther was an experienced financial services banker with two decades of experience advising clients in the wealth, pensions, and asset management sector. His expertise includes advising networks, IFAs, discretionary fund managers, investment platforms, asset managers, pension providers, and related technology and services providers on M&A and fundraising.
He joins from Deloitte, where he led their UK wealth and asset management M&A advisory team for 5 years. Prior to Deloitte, Lawther was a senior member of Canaccord Genuity Hawkpoint’s FIG investment banking team.
He will co-lead Continuum’s wealth, pensions, and asset management M&A advisory business alongside Myles Phillips, who joined Continuum at its inception from KBW, where he was a senior member of their investment banking team, and has led Continuum’s wealth and asset management transactions to date.
Nissan joins Continuum from Goldman Sachs, where he was a vice president in its Financial Institutions Group investment banking team. He has nearly six years of investment banking and corporate finance experience advising public and private corporations, entrepreneurial clients, and private equity sponsors across the financial services and financial technology sectors.
Prior to Goldman Sachs, Nissan spent five years as an infantry officer in the US Marine Corps stationed in Maryland, Virginia, California, and Afghanistan. He has an MBA degree from London Business School and a BSc in International Relations from the United States Naval Academy.
Nissan will enhance Continuum’s financial services technology and software sector team, bringing his expertise in advising on high-profile transactions such as the sale of Borsa Italiana to Euronext and the capital raise for SumUp from prominent investors.
Garth Hackshall, one of Continuum’s founding partners and CEO, said: “Continuum has grown substantially since inception and in spite of a difficult M&A market. The market is now turning and we see tremendous opportunity to continue our growth momentum in the coming years.
“To capitalise on it, we continue to invest in our core sectors, including wealth and financial services technology and software advisory, where Patrick and Cody bring substantial expertise. They chose to join Continuum over a number of competitors because we are offering something different to our people and clients: the somewhat forgotten sense of trust and teamwork. These values – prevalent in the latter-day merchant banks but are too often neglected or absent in our industry – are central to how Continuum operates.”
Since launch, Continuum has grown to a team of 35 and advised on many high-profile transactions across the financial services sector. This includes being an exclusive adviser to Titan Wealth on its investment from US private equity firm Parthenon Capital, being an exclusive advisor to Markerstudy on its merger with Atlantis Group, the personal lines broking business of the Ardonagh Group and advising Synectics Solutions, a leading independent provider of B2B financial crime software and data solutions on its investment from Synova Capital.
Founded by Chair Cahal Dowds and Senior Managing Directors Garth Hackshall, Simon Barrass, and Anurag Verma in 2022, Continuum Advisory Partners is a leading independent corporate finance advisory firm specialising in the financial services and technology sector. It focuses on advising on mergers and acquisitions in the UK and Europe.
