Terra Firma MDs land new senior jobs after investment staff exodus

Terra Firma, the UK private equity group with Guy Hands at the epicentre, has been losing senior investment staff, many of who departed the firm after less than 18 months. Now, they've been landing new roles.

Peter Miholich, who joined Terra Firma in September 2015 as a managing director on its support capital fund and departed in November last year, has just arrived at £8bn PE firm HgCapital as a senior investment professional on its mid-market fund. Hg has around 130 employees across offices in the UK and Germany.

Miholich joined Terra Firma from Nomura, where he led its principal credit business in Europe for 18 months. He also spent more than two years as global head of strategic equity at Royal Bank of Scotland, overseeing a team of 25 equity professionals and 15 structurers and a structured lending portfolio of $5bn. RBS closed the business in 2012.

Miholich was one of a number of senior investment professionals to depart Terra Firma after a relatively short tenure over the past 18 months. This year, managing directors Alex Williams, Michele Russo and Jyrki Lee Korhonen – all of whom joined in 2016 – all departed over the summer.

Korhonen, who was responsible for the Nordic region at Terra Firma, has just landed at DH Private Equity Partners. He joined last week as a partner focused on Nordic investments, based in London.

Korhonen joined Terra Firma in April 2016 from Triton Partners, where he was a partner focused on Nordic investments, but left in May. Before this, he worked in equity research at J.P. Morgan.

Terra Firma has a long-established graduate programme, which attracts 1,500 applications for six places and offers successful applications a deposit of 40% on a house in London if they stay for five years. However, it has been losing a high number of senior investment professionals over the past 18 months.

As well as these four departures, Tavra Banga, a former Citi banker who joined Terra Firma in 2007, left in January, while longstanding MD Julie Williamson left at the tail end of last year. Insiders told us previously that there are now comparatively few senior investment professionals left.

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