The speaker line-up for the 2008 conference was as follows:

Jon Moulton is managing partner of Alchemy, a UK-based private equity firm, that has invested £2 billion of equity with an emphasis on dealing with troubled companies. It recently completed the raising of a £300m European special opportunities fund.

He is a Chartered Accountant, a CF and Fellow of the Society of Turnaround Professionals, and previously worked with Citicorp Venture Capital in New York and London, Permira and Apax. He has been a director of five public companies, numerous private companies and is currently a director of the US-based Irvin parachute business, the Cedar IT business, Sylvan (timber) and Ashmore Group a major investor in emerging market debt.

Andy Nash is probably best known as a key member of the management team that bought out Taunton Cider for £72.5 million, floated it the following year for £153 million and sold it three years later for £280 million. Since then, as a portfolio chairman, he has been brought in to grapple with a string of MBOs and MBIs in various states of financial health and has achieved many notable corporate successes

He has also been chairman of two publicly-quoted companies, the drinks company Merrydown and the security business Photo-Scan. Both sets of shareholders were paid a handsome premium by new owners as new strategies increased profits.

Based on his experiences of several MBOs in the UK Andy wrote MBOs a handbook for management teams: lessons from the front-line which has received considerable acclaim since its publication in the summer of 2005. There are now plans afoot to publish in China and Australia. In recent times he has been in demand as a conference speaker and chairman and also is a visiting lecturer at Nottingham Universitys Business School.

He has recently become chairman of his ninth MBO for an international publishing group backed by Octopus Private Equity. Andy has also served as a non-executive director for city law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Gates since 1998.

Paul Beveridge has been instrumental in the establishment of Asset Based Lending as a mainstream business-financing tool for over 20 years. His job within KBC in the UK is a split one. He is the Managing Director of Business Capital; leading the team of 21 ABL professionals in London, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester and Haywards Heath. Paul is also responsible for the KBC UK Trade Finance team and is a member of the Banks UK Management Team.

His role involves the profit and loss responsibility for Business Capital and Trade Finance, and the credit risk responsibility for facilities advanced by the two divisions. Paul also spends time marketing and increasing the profile of the bank in the UK in London and their regional centres. Paul is also an active member of the ABL committee of the ABL industry trade body, the Asset Based Finance Association.

Ross Butler joined Real Deals in 2002 and was appointed editor in 2004. In 2005 he was awarded the Most Outstanding Contribution Award at the BVCA`s Private Equity & Venture Capital Journalist of the Year Awards.

Ross is a regular speaker and moderator at industry conferences, including SuperInvestor, Buying into Buyouts, and the UK Technology Forum. He is also involved in the London Business School`s Private Equity Institute and Harvard Business School private equity events.

He is chairman of the judging panel at the annual Real Deals/BVCA Private Equity Awards, and at the Real Deals/EVCA European Private Equity Awards. Prior to joining Caspian Publishing, Ross wrote for FOW, a financial derivatives magazine. He has also been published in Property Week and the Corporate Financier. Ross graduated from University College London.

Amy Carroll joined Real Deals in 2004 having covered the institutional investment market. She was previously editor of private equity news and research website AltAssets and a reporter for Private Banker International, a Lafferty Group publication. Amy graduated from Birmingham University in 2000.

Humphrey Cobbold joined Candover in 2006 to oversee origination activity. He came from Trinity Mirror plc, the UK`s largest newspaper publisher. As Director of Strategic Development and a member of the management board there, he was responsible for strategy and corporate finance. Humphrey was previously a Partner at McKinsey & Company where he led the UK Corporate Finance practice.

Martin Green has been in private equity for 17 years focusing on transactional business in the smaller mid-market. He joined 3i in 1990 and became a local director in Birmingham in 1996 before moving to the East Midlands to manage three 3i offices and subsequently becoming responsible for new investments across the Midlands. Martin joined Montagu Capital as a founder director in 2002 focusing on the UK regional mid-market before joining NVM in the summer of 2004 leading the investment team. Martin has led a number of successful deals throughout his career including investments in Duport Harper, ICOM Solutions, Enact, KCS Global and Largotim.

Bill Grimsey has over 30 years experience in the retail industry, gained across a number of different sectors. During this time, he has held Director positions for over 20 years.

He has vast experience in the restructuring of complex businesses and the ability to rapidly absorb and understand organisations issues and challenges and to build effective teams focused on resolution and achievement.

Most recently, Bill has been responsible for successfully refinancing The Big Food Group (formerly Iceland plc) through sale and lease-back, raising high yield bonds, and arranging new bank facilities of over £300 million. Prior to this, he was CEO of Wickes Plc and over a four year period led its return to profit and successful sale following a fraud investigation and triumphant defence of a hostile cash takeover. Bill spent a number of years during the late eighties and early nineties in Hong Kong developing their Park n Shop group of supermarkets with the radical introduction of Asias first multi-temperature distribution centre.

Bill also holds a non-executive directorship at Capita. He is a member of the Audit, Remuneration and Nomination Committees.

Simon Henderson joined European Capital in 2005 as founder and head of the UK Buyout Team. Simon was formerly a Director at Barclays Private Equity, where he had worked since 1995, focusing on UK mid market buy-outs. His responsibilities there included origination, execution, monitoring and realisation of private equity investments. He led several investments at Barclays Private Equity, notably London Luton Airport, Edotech and Fosbel, all of which returned in excess of 4 times cost on realisation. In addition he originated the investment in Go Fly which was very successfully sold to Easyjet after only 1 year, returning 2.5x cost. Prior to joining Barclays Private Equity, Simon qualified as a Chartered Accountant at PwC. He is a member of the American Capital Investment Committee.

Jonathan Hick is a serial entrepreneur; he spent 14 years in the advertising business. At the age of 24 he was part of a management buy-in team which bought a northern advertising agency. Over the years he has been involved in 5 start-ups, in promotional clothing, software, recruitment and fast food. He launched the fore-runner to Directorbank, the MBi Register, in January 1998 and following the secondary buyout in July 2006, is focussing his time on building relationships with clients and candidates.

Mike Hinchliffe is one of Addleshaw Goddard`s 48 corporate partners. He specialises in private equity transactions (MBOs, MBIs, Development Capital and exits), as well as general mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other corporate advice.

Over the years Mike has handled a number of high profile buy-outs and private equity exits, acting for both management teams and financial institutions. Examples of his recent buy-out experience acting for management includes advising on the £95m secondary buy-out of Kurt Geiger Holdings by Graphite Capital, the £190m secondary buy out of Americana by Hg Capital, the sale of the Las Iguanas restaurant chain to Bowmark Capital, and the management buy-out of the West Cornwall Pasty Company by Gresham. He has also advised a range of private equity institutions including 3i, Barclays, ECI, Graphite, Gresham, LDC and Piper Private Equity.

Jim Keeling, Joint Chairman of Corbett Keeling, graduated from Oxford University before qualifying as a chartered accountant with KPMG. He was a member of KPMGs corporate finance division when it was first set up in the 1980s, selling and arranging funding for UK private businesses. In 1993, he founded Corbett Keeling, which specialises in raising funding for management buy-out teams.

He has extensive knowledge of the private equity and associated debt industry and has advised on a wide variety of buy-out transactions raising funds for businesses in sectors ranging from services to engineering. For example, he recently led Corbett Keelings work on the buy-outs of insurance broker Towry Law and engineering business Expamet. He also writes widely on the subject of funding deals with private equity and debt.

Ajay Khaitan is in his second career. His first was within the fairly well established Indian `Khaitan family` group, which has a diversified portfolio of interests from agri products to chemicals to household appliances to metals & building materials. Over time, Ajay progressed to manage a mini-conglomerate of businesses and investments that touched on consumer brands such as Eveready (batteries), Kraft (dairy products) & `Khaitan` (fans and other household appliances) as well as intermediate products businesses in mining & mineral processing, inorganic chemicals, steel, cement and hydel power. Ajay was responsible for the international interests of the Group which included businesses in Singapore, Dubai, Mauritius, UK, Italy and Switzerland. Ajay`s second and more recent career has been independent of the family interests, in targeting the acquisition of under-performing western consumer brands, and re-engineering them with an emphasis towards Asia - in terms of supply chain as well as retail demand. He led the origination, acquisition and turnaround of the heritage British jeanswear brand - Lee Cooper - in 2005, and almost(!) succeeded in buying the heritage French luxury crystalwear brand - Lalique - earlier this year

Michael Murphy led the management buy-in of Friends Reunited in January 2003 and since then has made Friends Reunited one of the most powerful, trusted and profitable websites in the UK with a membership of over 21 million. The business was sold to ITV Plc in December 2005 for £175million.

Prior to the sale of the business he had a 20-year career with Pearson Plc, culminating in being COO of the Financial Times.

Michael is also Non Executive Chairman of DLG following its re-financing through Kaupthing Capital Partners in October 2007. DLG is the UKs leading provider of consumer lifestyle data for multi-channel direct marketing, with detailed lifestyle and demographic information volunteered from over 20 million individuals.

Previous non executive directorships include Multimap and Datamonitor Plc.

Ron Series is a South African Chartered Accountant and Business School Graduate, Ron moved to the UK in 1990, and since an early meeting with David (now Lord) James, he has been involved in an interesting mix of corporate turnaround projects, and MBI activities.

Ron worked with David James on the turnaround of Davies & Newman PLC (the parent company of Dan Air) and on LEP Group PLC (at the time the UKs biggest freight forwarding group). When a negotiated disposal of LEPs remaining core business fell through at the 11^th hour, he put forward an alternate proposal to the Groups bankers and acquired the worldwide logistics business. This was subsequently sold to a US Private Equity buyer, which was Rons introduction to the world of PE.

Over the next few years he worked on a number of corporate turnarounds, often in the Private Equity arena, including the logistics division of Hogg Robinson Group, and Tuffnells Express Parcels, where he negotiated an equity participation linked to a successful exit for the Private Equity investors. On returning the business to acceptable profitability levels, it was sold in an MBO to the management team which he had introduced.

In early 2007 Ron acquired the Amtrak Express Parcels and logistics business out of Administration, which is currently his main turnaround focus.

Michael Snapes is a professional executive chairman and chief executive with a background in leisure and finance, as well as a specialist in improving and developing branded and multi-site businesses. Michael is known within the venture capital community as having raised large sums personally and has acted as a specialist advisor to large transactions within the leisure sector.

He was Executive Chairman of Hillarys Blinds, a BIMBO backed by Close Bros Private Equity, from May 2001 until it was sold in July 2004 having more than doubled in value.

Michael was the Founder / Chairman of European Golf Brands from February 2000 until January 2004, also supported by Close Brothers. In his time there, the value trebled.

Previous roles include; MD Coral (performance turnaround and brand repositioning of an international betting and stadia business), Director Bass Leisure, CEO French plc (revitalised an ailing textile plc), Chairman Spoils plc (a troubled retailer). In addition he has led a variety of smaller turnaround and rescue initiatives.

David Scowsill is currently on the board of four Private Equity and Venture Capital backed businesses: Vice Chairman World Hotels AG (KP Capital), Chairman of Yuuguu Limited (Enterprise Ventures/Merseyside Special Investment Fund). Director of VenereNet SpA (Advent International) and Director of On the Beach Holidays (ISIS Equity Partners). During the last four years, he has built an extensive network in Private Equity and Venture Capital, whilst working on specific deals in the retail, consumer, technology and travel sectors. He has been interim Sales and Marketing Director at easyJet airlines, Marketing & Strategy Advisor to Group CEO at Manchester Airports Group, and CEO of Opodo, the pan-European online travel company owned by nine of Europes leading airlines and Amadeus, travel industry technology provider.

David was CEO of the private equity owned Minit Group Plc (UBS Capital), a multi-service global retailer, with 3700 owned and franchised shops in Minit Colors, Mister Minit, Montre Service, Sketchley and Supasnaps brands.

He was appointed as SVP Sales, Marketing and IT on the board of Hilton International, after spending the first 19 years of his career in the airline industry with American Airlines and British Airways. After 3 years responsible for the Asia/Pacific division of BA, he became Director Europe/Middle East, including responsibility for Deutsche BA in Germany and TAT/Air Liberte in France.

Philip Soar is chairman of Ithaca Exhibitions Limited and of Waypoint Exhibitions Group. Ithaca was acquired as an MBO from Penton Holdings (USA) in May 2005 for £2 million. He disposed of the company (to UBM) in September 2007 for £14.25M (plus £1.3M cash in the business). In 2006 the company made a pre-tax profit of £104,000. In 2007 the projected pre-tax profit is £1.5M. Ithacas main exhibition is Internet World which is now the largest IT exhibition in the United Kingdom.

Since 1997 Waypoint has launched eight new exhibitions.The Waypoint model is that each exhibition is established as a separate company with show managers owning equity. Of the eight, three have been sold for a total of £8 million and one continues to run very successfully, with an EBITDA in 2007 of £250,000. In 1998 one of these exhibitions, 100% Design, won the Exhibition of the Year Award.

Philip is also chairman of Eaglemoss Publishing and Aurenis Publishing (France). Philip says "I originally established Aurenis in 1982 with two French colleagues. In 2004, when the company showed an EBITDA of circa €500,000, we brought in Rothschild (Paris) with an investment of €6 million (for 17%) to expand from agency work to publishing as principal. In February 2007 we acquired Eaglemoss Publishing (London) for £16 million. The combined group now has a retail turnover of €400 million and projects an EBITDA of €10 million for 2007".