Atrium Finance is an independent boutique financial and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm based in Rabat, Casablanca, Paris and London. We provide a broad range of financial services, including tailored strategic M&A and related capital structure advice, debt and equity capital markets advisory, structured finance as well as investment advisory to large and medium cap public and private companies, helping them create shareholder value above and beyond what is implied by their organic business plan.
In addition to our services to mainstream firms and given our commitment to development, we also provide specific advisory services to development-oriented financial institutions such as Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) banks and microfinance institutions to help them engage in a sustainable growth pattern. We also help companies and investors who are active in the impact investing area raise debt and equity.
The firm was founded by Hicham Bayali, a senior corporate and investment banker with a 20-year global experience in both investment banking/financial advisory and development / impact investing finance.
Our professionals are veterans of top development finance institutions and investment banks and have earned reputations for excellence in advising clients with careers spanning 15 to 20+ years.
We believe a true client partnership results in more informed advice and optimal outcomes:
We work hard as long-term partners to our clients to help them create value, and they reward us accordingly. We adhere to the highest standards of work ethics and aim for excellence in serving our clients.
Hicham Bayali spent a large part of his career with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment banking arm of the World Bank Group for the private sector, where he led large advisory and investment transactions for the Financial Institutions Group department (FIG) across the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Central Asia (EMENA) regions. Through a rotation in the IFC’s Cairo, Dubai and Rabat offices in an effort to enhance the coverage of the institution’s FIG clients in EMENA, M. Bayali and his team provided the IFC’s FIG clients in those regions with customized operational and financial advisory as well as investment services aimed at enhancing the growth of the micro, small and medium enterprise finance in the region. In 2012, he was nominated as a Global Business Leader within the IFC for his business leadership across three continents.
Mr. Bayali began his career as an auditor with KPMG Peat Marwick in 1997 before he joined the corporate finance and mergers and acquisition department of Vivendi Universal, working on external growth operations of the group’s telecommunication activity across Europe, through acquisitions of national public and private operators. In 2000, M. Bayali joined Citigroup’s arm for North Africa, where he worked across the full spectrum of corporate banking services and transactions including the structuration of senior and subordinated debt/quasi-equity funding, syndications, trade finance solutions, debt restructuring and remedial management solutions, as well as capital market transactions. In 2003, M. Bayali joined the microfinance industry as the Chief Financial Officer of Zakoura, the largest microfinance institution in MENA and Africa at that time, before he joined the IFC in 2006.
During his tenure at the International Finance Corporation, Mr. Bayali was involved in the execution of a large number of transactions across all areas of corporate finance and financial advisory. His industry experience spans across a broad range of sectors with a specific focus on financial institutions, where Mr. Bayali advised on an extensive number of assignments in the fields of corporate and SME banking as well as microfinance.
In 2016, Hicham Bayali founded Atrium Finance, an independent investment bank based in Rabat, to focus on strategic and financial advisory services for a broad range of Africa and Middle East-based clients.
Hicham Bayali holds a Master in Finance from Paris-Dauphine University, a Master in Accounting and Finance from Bordeaux-Montesquieu University and a Master in Business Law.
Julien Deconinck is Managing Partner of Clermount, a financial advisory boutique focused on impact investing.
With 15 years of experience in corporate finance, Mr. Deconinck advised on M&A transactions representing an aggregate value of more than EUR 40 billion.
Most recently, he was Executive Director in the Corporate Finance Department of Société Générale CIB where he focused on the Power, Utilities & Infratructures and the Consumer & Retail sectors. Prior to joining Société Générale, Julien Deconinck was an investment banker at Lazard and HSBC and an investment manager at Parcom Capital.
He is a non-voting board member of Tarkett,333; a leading flooring product manufacturer and a role model in the circular economy.
He graduated from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris and from Makers Academy in London.
Denis Viennot is Managing Partner of Clermount, a financial advisory boutique focused on impact investing.
With 16 years of experience in corporate finance, clean energy and international development, Mr. Viennot is a seasoned who held a variety of senior positions both as an investment professional and an entrepreneur..
Until 2015, Mr. Viennot was in charge of clean energy programs at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, where he developed, amongst other responsibilities, a $250 million facility in support of renewable energy projects in the MENA region. Prior to that, Denis Viennot was a Director at GE Capital in Paris and London until 2009, advising on large project finance and leverage finance transactions, before becoming partner and shareholder of Reenergise Group, an innovative UK green energy company supported by UK’s Green Investment Bank.
Denis Viennot began his career in M&A at UBS Warburg in London. He graduated from ESSEC in Paris.
