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The Partners John McLaren John McLaren is Chairman of the Barchester Group. He began his career as a diplomat, both in the Foreign Office in London and in the British Embassy in Tokyo. He then worked in investment banking, where he was a director of Barings, and in venture capital, where he was a General Partner with Hambrecht and Quist Venture Partners in San Francisco. During his subsequent time successively as a Director of Morgan Grenfell, Deutsche Bank and Barchester, he has advised a wide range of companies on major merger and acquisition transactions, including DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Nissan, BBA and Siemens. In 1997, he published his first novel, 'Press Send', which was followed by 'Seventh Sense' (1998), 'Black Cabs' (1999), and 'Running Rings' (2001). His latest novel, 'Blind Eye', was published in March 2004. The novels have been published in many languages, including Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. He is the founder and Chairman of Masterprize, the world's leading competition for symphonic composition, in which the partners are EMI, Classic FM, The London Symphony Orchestra, Gramophone Magazine, and National Public Radio of the U.S. He is a non-executive director of Macallan Distillers Limited, Morrison Bowmore Distillers Limited, and Xtera Communications Inc., and serves on the London Symphony Orchestra Advisory Board. John is a director of Barchester Group Limited. Steve McCauley Steve McCauley has played a number of roles; entrepreneur, executive, strategic advisor, investor and public speaker. His particular experience lies in media and entertainment, with an emphasis on new digital media. Steve started his career in the music industry. Steve co-founded TTL Music, a leading UK music programming company. He later moved to the US, where he was a senior executive in the cable entertainment programming industry. In the mid 1990s, Steve returned to the UK and co-founded Leavesden Film Studios. He later acted as chief executive of a music software company. A noted public speaker, Steve has acted as an adviser to leading entertainment, communications and media companies, including IBM, Viacom, Hutchison, GWR Group, BT, BBC and EMI. www.stevemccauley.com Stash Ognjanovich Stash Ognjanovich is one of the founding members of Barchester and is a corporate finance adviser with Barchester Group Limited. He has a total of thirteen years of corporate finance experience in New York and London, having previously worked with Morgan Grenfell and Deutsche Bank. His experience has included advisory assignments in the fields of mergers & acquisitions, equity capital markets, joint ventures and leveraged buyouts, for transactions in the USA, UK, Germany, Italy, France, and South Africa. He has worked on transactions in a variety of sectors, including automotive, banking, food & drinks, engineering, packaging, and transport services. His other business interests are in the fields of digital video distribution and foreign investment in the newly democratic Republic of Serbia. In addition to his private entrepreneurial pursuits in new media, Stash has been an executive at Imerge Limited, a Cambridge-based software company, and a consultant to BBC Worldwide advising on new business opportunities for digital video, in television, on the Internet and over private IP networks. With the recent democratic changes in Serbia, Stash has also been actively following the development of the recently announced mass privatisation programme which will result in the privatisation of some 4,000 state-owned companies over the next four years. His education has included an Economics degree from Princeton University, and a Masters in Media&Communications from the London School of Economics. Lorne Forsyth Lorne Forsyth joined Barchester in 2003. Having commenced his career in the retail sector, Lorne joined Schroders corporate finance division in 1985 before moving to Morgan Grenfell where he developed expertise in the automotive and engineering industries and became head of the automotive sector practice in corporate finance. In 1997 he moved to HSBC as global head of the automotive and engineering sectors. During his career he has been involved in advising a number of prominent multinational companies in these sectors including BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, AlliedSignal, Alstom, Continental, Ingersoll Rand, Siemens and Trelleborg. He has also worked with a selection of private equity houses and privately owned unlisted companies on both buy-side and sell-side M&A transactions. Lorne is also a founding shareholder of the book publishers, Elliott & Thompson Limited. Lorne is a director of Barchester Group Limited. Jon Exton Jon Exton has worked in corporate finance and banking for over 25 years. He commenced his career as an accountant in the hotel industry, which led him to immigrate to Canada. After working with CP Hotels he then moved into corporate finance with the parent company, Canadian Pacific. Jon then joined the Bank of Montreal where he made the transition into corporate banking. After many years in Canada, he returned to the UK to work in Corporate Finance with The Toronto-Dominion Bank in London providing a full range of banking services to blue chip corporate clients. Jon then joined the Industrial Bank of Japan, where he became Head of European Multinationals and was responsible for facilitating the full range of the bank’s products and services to its largest European corporate clients across the continent. These services focused on project finance, securitisation, structured finance, treasury services, capital market issues & investments and acquisition finance. His close corporate clients included BP-Amoco, Unilever, Centrica, BOC Group, ICI, Shell, Rio Tinto, BT, Anglo-American and Astra Zeneca. Barchester Group Limited is authorised and regulated by The Financial Services Authority Copyright by Barchester Partners LLP and Barchester Group Limited