Insider Northern Ireland Dealmakers Awards 2025

Insider Media

Business editor Phil Cunliffe reports from the Insider Northern Ireland Dealmakers Awards held at the Europa Hotel in Belfast. A record, sell-out attendance saw awards being presented to members of the NI corporate finance community.

Transcript

00:00So here we are at the Europa Hotel in the middle of Belfast for the Northern Ireland

00:19Dealmakers Awards. Really excited to be here again to be presenting and rewarding awards

00:27to the incredible work that's been done in Northern Ireland over the last 12 months.

00:31There's fantastic winners and a short list of businesses here this evening. We're a sell-out

00:38and we're really looking forward to a really good fun evening. So

00:41I'll be interviewing some of the winners and the sponsors later on.

00:44So I'm here with John Clark of our headline sponsor LBC. John, thank you very much for

00:57being part of it. Really exciting night. Why is it so important for LBC to be here and

01:04supporting these awards? Well first of all let me just say delighted to be here tonight. Thank

01:09you for inviting us to be the headline sponsor tonight. I think as much as anything else we're

01:15increasingly recognising the quality of the businesses that we're seeing in Northern Ireland.

01:19We spend a lot of time out here meeting local businesses, local management teams and local

01:24advisors. We always come away really really impressed with what we've seen and we're very

01:29much keen to invest and support businesses in the local market. We've invested in the region

01:35historically. We've thankfully been quite successful in the businesses that we've bought

01:42to the people that we've met. I'm super keen to do more. There's tons of talent in the room tonight.

01:48We've been chatting to people just in the bars around town beforehand. Loads of enthusiasm

01:54about the region and what Ireland's got to offer. I'm delighted to be here. So I'm here with Alan

02:01one of our esteemed judges. Thank you very much for being part of the judging panel Alan.

02:06Tell us how you thought the quality of the submissions were this year. It's a fantastic

02:12evening with really quality teams coming forward and a lot of excellent deals. Surprising some of

02:19the deals that you don't realise what's going on quietly in the background and it was just great

02:23to be part of the whole evening. Thank you very much. Yeah it's really special buzz in the

02:28atmosphere today. More people than they've seen in years before. Brilliant. Thanks Alan.

02:36So I'm here with Nessa Quigley, head of the Carlton MacDowell law firm of the year.

02:40Congratulations Nessa. Brilliant result for the team. What's been special about 2024 for the team

02:47and you? It's been such a big busy year. A lot of large transactions and it's just great to get the

02:54recognition especially for the team because everybody works really hard, pulls together

02:59and you know we do it for our clients so it's good to see external people you know

03:06recognise the efforts that we've gone through. So yeah I'm really delighted. And the sort of

03:12atmosphere in the room is really great. It's packed, absolutely packed tonight. Barely room to

03:19get up to the stage so it was great. The insider deal team did a really good job and it's you know

03:26I thought the compare was great, very funny and the right mix of funny and serious. And cheeky.

03:34And cheeky yeah so I think he went down well so it was really good. I can hear it's still going on

03:39so it's yeah good night. Thank you Nessa. Congratulations again. Thanks. So I'm here with

03:44Charlie Curlin of Grant Thornton, our Dealmaker of the Year. Charlie congratulations. What's your

03:50reaction to winning the award? Yes thanks Philip. Great night and I'd say great night for the team

03:56as well. So fantastic result and very pleased to be standing and holding the award. Yeah and GT won

04:02the Corporate Finance Advisory Team of the Year as well so that must be a double win. It's great

04:08for the team. Yeah and obviously a big part of winning this award is from the team and the team

04:13contribution and certainly the clients that we're dealing with as well. It's been a tremendous year

04:18and dealing with a lot of very very interesting transactions so I was really really pleased to

04:24win both awards tonight. And a successful 2025 in prospect. Yes 25 off to a good start so

04:33again another significant transaction. Got over the line HSL deal to Oscar Healthcare so that's a

04:39good one for 2025 and hopefully more more to come. Absolutely. Charlie congratulations again.

04:45Have a good rest of the night. Thank you very much Philip. Thank you.

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