There's no let up in the Directorbank success story

Directorbank has achieved its most spectacular year of growth since it was set up seven years ago.   
   
With profits up 80 per cent on 2003 and numbers of appointments up 33 per cent, the Leeds and London-based company which recruits directors for some of Britain's biggest firms, has paid off its long-term loans three years early.   
   
Directorbank, the UK's leading recruiter of directors and non-executive directors for management buy-out/buy-in deals, is now signed up by 50 venture capital houses paying annual retainer fees to have constant access to a database of some 2,500 immediately available and vetted directors.  
   
The most recent to sign up is the giant American private equity fund, Warburg Pincus.  
   
Private equity and venture capital-backed companies employ 18 per cent of Britain's private workforce with some £60bn of funds invested.  
   
In the financial year ended June 30, 750 investment executives had access to the Directorbank service and carried out more than 14,000 searches to find directors to assist with deals.  
   
Sarah Grünewald, one of the north's top corporate financiers, joined the business two years ago and has spearheaded a new division providing non-executives for public companies.  
   
Jonathan Hick, founder and chief executive, said: "We are now positioned as a major partner in the private equity market.   
   
"We have turned the whole process of finding people for VC-backed deals on its head and we're doing the same in the plc market.

  
   
"We can short-list non-executive director candidates within days – and plcs love the fact that we work on a contingent basis.  
   
"Our service fits in with the Higgs Report and the need for plcs to be open, thorough and wide-ranging in recruiting non-executive directors."