Who we are

A banker and an operator. Both founders.

Between us: a career on the ECM syndicate desk of a global investment bank, and a data business built from Sydney into a global firm. We have sat on both sides of the table you are about to sit at.

Nicolas Meer

Co-founder

Nico spent nearly 20 years in investment banking, reaching senior officer on the Equity Capital Markets Syndicate Desk at Credit Suisse, where he executed IPOs and capital raisings measured in the billions for some of the most demanding clients in the market.

Since moving to Sydney in 2012 he has spent nearly fifteen years working with Australian founder-led businesses on capital strategy, exits, and negotiations, alongside building and running his own consulting business. He knows what institutional counterparties will do before they do it, because he used to be one.

Nico leads transaction processes, capital strategy, and negotiations.

Alan Shields

Co-founder

Alan co-founded RFI Global, a financial services data and insights business, and built it from a Sydney start-up into a global firm serving major banks and financial institutions across multiple continents.

He has lived the entire founder arc: first hire to global team, first client to institutional contracts, growth, turnaround, and exit. He brings the operator’s eye to every engagement: what will actually get executed, by whom, and by when.

Alan leads commercial strategy, operations, and team-building.

Why this combination works

Most advisors have one lens. You need both.

The banker’s lens

How buyers value, how processes create tension, how institutions negotiate, and where the traps are in a term sheet.

The operator’s lens

What a plan costs to execute, which hires matter, and what a business actually looks like from the inside at each stage of growth.

The founder’s lens

We have both built our own firms. We know the weight of payroll, the loneliness of the decision, and the difference advice makes when it is genuinely on your side.

Talk to a principal, not a pitch team.

Let’s have a chat