Team

MANAGEMENT

Grégoire Buisson, 40, French

Founder & CEO, Epsilon Research

Grégoire has been active in the M&A sector for more than 15 years. He is the co-founder with Anthony Wimbush, and president of Epsilon Corporate Finance Ltd (independent service provider for corporate finance professionals, 2001) and Epsilon Finance (M&A IT platform and services, 2002); He is the founder (2007) and CEO of Epsilon Research, a Paris-based research and financial analysis bureau specialized in the private equity and private company M&A markets.

Prior to founding Epsilon, Grégoire worked as an investment manager with a London-based early stage venture fund, Sitka Partners (2000-2001). He previously worked for the investment banking division of Société Générale in Paris and SG Hambros in London (1995-2000). Advising major European groups as well as private firms, he has accomplished complex corporate finance projects (valuations, restructurings, private and public M&A transactions, LBOs) in many industry and service sectors.

Since 2002, Grégoire is a lecturer at Sciences-Po (on new venture development & financing, Master ‘Finance & Strategy’). He holds an MBA from London Business School (2001) and graduated from Sciences-Po, Paris IX-Dauphine (Masters Degree in Management) and Paris I-Sorbonne (Masters Degree in Philosophy).

Speaks: French, English.

Anthony Wimbush, 41, British

Non Executive Director, Epsilon Research

Co-founder and director of Epsilon Corporate Finance Ltd (service provider for corporate finance professionals, 2001), and Epsilon Finance (M&A IT platform and services, 2002)

Senior Consultant with One Equity Strategy since 2005

SG Investment Banking (Paris), SG Hambros Corporate Finance (London) 1994-2001

Oxford University (B.A. Modern Languages), ESCP-EAP management school (Paris-Oxford-Berlin)

Speaks: French, English, German.

Alan Ocaña, 39, Mexican & French

Director, Epsilon Climate Capital (Epsilon Research's JV in the Environment & Climate Change sector)

Alan has been involved with the renewable energy, environmental services and carbon markets for the last 6 years. At Itochu Europe (one of Japan's largest trading conglomerates) he was responsible for advising on strategic investments, joint ventures and the boards of the portfolio companies focused on the wind, carbon, biofuels, fuel cells and waste markets.
Prior to that, Alan was a manager at Deloitte (London). As part of the strategy team and deal support groups, he advised blue chip companies on strategic and operational issues and was a member of the deal support group where he performed commercial due diligences, market entry strategies and plans for institutional investor looking to invest or restructure companies. Alan has also entrepreneurship and board experience in small business ventures being a founder of Crossbow Capital (a small private equity investment vehicle now closed) and a director of a couple of small companies in the UK and France.

He holds an MBA from London Business School (2001) and he is certified by the French environmental agency to calculate carbon footprints.

Speaks: French, English, Spanish.

FINANCIAL ANALYST TEAM

Anis Mnejja, Tunisian

Financial Analyst

In parallel to his position with Epsilon Research, Anis is associate researcher to THEMA CNRS Lab at UCP. He taught corporate finance, business game, entrepreneurial finance and management at several leading Business and Engineering Schools and Universities in France. He has published several articles on Private Equity and innovation in entrepreneurship in European and American journals. He is also an Associate Fellow Member of the Private Equity Research Center Geneva, and member of the AFFI French Association of finance. He organizes several French and English-speaking national and international conferences. Anis received his Bachelor of Science in finance from the High Business School (ESC) and his Master of Science in finance from the University of Sfax (Tunisia), and holds a PHD in finance (2009, with honours) from the University of Cergy (2009). Anis has worked previously with BEIFAM as head training department, and with Performances & Strategy as consultant in Private Equity and Corporate Finance.

Thesis: Essays in Private Equity: The Discount Premium in LBO and M&A transactions, The Sources of Value Creation in LBO, and Private Equity Funds Performance.
Research Fields: Risk/Return trade-off in Private Equity, Fund Performance Analysis, Value creation through LBO and M&A transactions.

Articles & conferences:

Quelle performance pour le capital risque?, with J-M Sahut, 6ième congrès de l'Académie de l'Entrepreneuriat, Nov. 2009 - Sophia Antipolis.
The Discount Premium in M&A and LBO transactions: An empirical analysis, The Global Finance Conference, Hawaii, Avril 2009.
Le Capital risque dans les secteurs innovants et la performance des FCPI with J-M Sahut, Revue Gestion2000, Vol 26, N°1, 2009.
Required Rate of Returns in Venture Capital Investments; A Certainty Equivalent Approach within Presence of Information Uncertainty, with A Bouri & M Bellalah, The International Journal of Finance, Vol 19, N° 2, 2007.
Le capital risque et la performance des Fonds Communs de Placements à l’Innovation Français with JM Sahut & R Kaffel, 9ième journée de l’académie de l’entrepreneuriat, ISTM Paris & Advancia, June 2007.
Entrepreneuriat et capital risque : le paradigme financier, Conference «Entrepreneuriat ; quel futur? » l’ISC-Paris, June 2007.

Speaks: French, English, Arabic.

Nada Saliba, Lebanese

Financial Analyst

With Epsilon since 2006, Nada has analyzed more than a 1,000 deals across all sectors and developed detailed reports on valuation multiples.

Prior to Epsilon she worked at the acquisitions department of Largardère and at Credit Financier in Lebanon as an equity and strategy analyst. She holds a PHD in economics (2009, with honours) from the Sorbonne University and graduated from the Sorbonne (Masters Degree in European Economics) and the Lebanese University (Masters Degree in Political Science). Nada has published a number of articles in Asian Journals on FDI and indebtedness.

Thesis: "Globalization and financial liberalization: indebtedness and crises in the Asian emerging countries. The case of Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia",

Research Fields: globalization, monetary flows, financial crisis, indebtedness, and bailout.
Speaks: French, English, Arabic.

Mariam Poghosyan, Armenian & French

Financial Analyst

With Epsilon since 2006, Mariam worked previously in the Financing and Treasuries Department of France Telecom.

She holds a Master Degree in Financial and Banking Techniques form the University of Paris II-Pantheon Assas and an Engineering degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Armenia.

Thesis work on "Options valuation with stochastic volatility" at the University of Paris II-Pantheon Assas.

Speaks: French, English, Russian, Armenian.

Marine de Blic, French

Financial Analyst & UK Business Development, based in London

Marine joined Epsilon in 2003. In addition on her work as financial analyst, she is in charge of developing the UK business, and has built relationships with London-based private equity firms and M&A teams within boutiques and accountancy firms.
Prior to joining Epsilon, she worked as an internal auditor with PSA Peugeot Citroen Bank in London, and as an external auditor in the services industry department of PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Paris.
Marine graduated in Finance from ESCP-EAP management school (1999) and holds a degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Paris IX-Dauphine (1996).

Speaks: French, English