IQ-EQ has added to its specialist CrossDeal team with the appointment of Prodipta Bhattacharya as Corporate Finance Director.IQ-EQ’s CrossDeal is a niche service offering that connects wealthy individuals, funds and corporates to private deals in the alternative assets space, particularly in private equity and real estate. Deals are sourced both from the market and from the group’s existing client base.
The growth of this function feeds directly into the global growth strategy of IQ-EQ’s Private Wealth segment; a key element of which is to broaden its offering with additional complementary services, such as CrossDeal.
Having invested in a new online platform for CrossDeal in July of this year, IQ-EQ is now pleased to welcome director Prodi Bhattacharya to this strategically significant team.
Prodi is an investment professional with over 20 years’ experience in banking, corporate finance and asset management. Before joining IQ-EQ, he was Director of Corporate Development at Jindal, the Indian-owned industrial conglomerate, where he was responsible for all M&A activity within the group.
Prior to this, he was Managing Director of Drax Private Markets, a boutique private equity and private debt fundraising platform. He has spent most of his career on the buy side and previously worked as the Head of Risk Management and Quantitative Research for Axa Investment Management’s Alternatives Investment Unit, directly responsible for their multi-billion-euro alternative asset portfolios.
Prodi holds a PhD in Nuclear Physics as well as a Master’s in Engineering from the University of Warwick and has also previously worked at the renowned CERN Physics Laboratory in Geneva.
Based in London, Prodi will work closely with his new CrossDeal colleagues in Luxembourg in sourcing new sell-side mandates to further the quality, range and number of deals available on the platform at any one time.
Prodi says: “I am delighted to be joining IQ-EQ as it seeks to grow its CrossDeal offering, which serves to introduce a wide range of investors to interesting private equity and real estate deals. The private deal introduction space is fast emerging but still relatively fragmented, so it’s exciting to see IQ-EQ push forward in this area and offer a strong solution as part of an impressively comprehensive offering to private clients and family offices. I look forward to working with the rest of the CrossDeal team and with the group’s client-facing directors located across the globe.”
IQ-EQ’s Group Head of Private Wealth, Steve Sokic, adds: “It is with great pleasure that I welcome Prodi to IQ-EQ; his background, network and insight in the private asset introduction space make him ideal for the role and I have no doubts that with his support CrossDeal will continue to reach new heights. In the private wealth sphere, CrossDeal is proving to be of great and growing interest to single- and multi-family offices as they become more focused on deal flow, so we’re proud to be able to support them on this journey while also making connections and sourcing investor interest for our other clients.”
