Why I gave up a safe and decent career in private equity

James Darlington was lured from Maven to run Vertex, a new corporate finance advisory business

We had a great reaction to our piece on Tuesday about the buyout at My Digital by John Whelan.

Sadly, we have no dramatic metaphors about risk for today’s story about a brave and audacious start-up in the advisory market.

The arrival of Vertex Corporate in Manchester and Birmingham speaks to the changes going on right across the advisory market, as we’ve touched on in pieces on Interpath, Cortus, Convex and Cole Associates recently.

Do please pass this on, do please comment, either on here or on LinkedIn. It would be good to get a debate going.

The paint is still wet on the office walls of James Darlington’s new work near Manchester Airport.

He’s the one above, on the front row in a white shirt and blue suit.

But it’s not just a new colour palette that the trim looking corporate financier is hoping to bring to the market with Vertex, the new boutique sell-side practice he’s been lured to run by three seasoned entrepreneurs. It’s a fresh outlook.

His new business Vertex is focusing on providing sell-side advice to companies with annual underlying profits of up to £2m.

Typically, businesses advised by Vertex will have an enterprise value of between £1m and £10m.