Dave Amber

Dave Amber – IFT Accredited Member 

Dave is now best known as a hands-on, commercial, no-nonsense, non-executive director and consultant, but in getting there he has successfully filled many stakeholder roles, from lender (senior and mezzanine debt), institutional investor, board observer, Investor Director, Independent NED and CEO, with restructuring and turnaround featuring throughout since 2001. He's most well known for high profile retail deals, having served on the boards of Watches of Switzerland and FatFace, although has wide ranging sector experience.  

He started his career with NatWest/RBS in relationship banking, then Credit, moving into Leveraged Finance in 1996 as a deal-doer, backing many PE-backed MBO’s/LBO’s before moving across to the post-deal portfolio monitoring side in 2000.   Since 2001, Dave has spent most of his time on small-mid-cap highly leveraged, stressed/distressed deals across UK, Europe and USA, where he initially represented RBS’ Mezzanine Fund (as Board Observer) to protect/enhance/recover value, working with executive boards and PE sponsors to deliver better solutions across a wide range of sectors including retail, leisure, manufacturing, automotive, printing and service businesses.  He has undertaken a large number of Board Observer roles and lead restructures.

In 2008 he was headhunted into Landsbanki (now LBI), the Icelandic bank to run their Leveraged loan book, shortly prior to the bank’s collapse in Oct 2008 - this resulted in a multitude of restructuring activity (financial and operational) led by Dave where the bank had the equity economics either directly or through the debt.  This sometimes involved taking direct board appointments, most notably Aurum Holdings Ltd (Watches of Switzerland/Mappin & Webb/Goldsmiths) [NED] and VCG (Holdings) Ltd [NED and later Joint CEO].   Dave delivered some outstanding recoveries and value-enhancements for LBI’s creditors (Aurum won Turnaround of the Year 2013 at the IFT).  

After successful completion of the multi-billion GBP run-off of LBI, Dave took on the Joint CEO role of VCG (a brand management and graphics group) in 2015, where a 2-year turnaround delivered a successful exit/sale in January 2017 at a strong multiple.

Since then he has taken NED, board support and consulting roles for a variety of PE-backed and lender-owned businesses using his 28 years in the PE/Leveraged Finance industry to help recover and build value. Most recently, he  sat on the Holdco board of Fat Face, the lifestyle brand retailer as a Non-Executive Independant Investor Director for a large Direct Lending Fund for 2.5 years through to a successful trade sale to Next plc.  

Dave is available in many capacities (NED/chair/consultant/advisor/Portfolio Management) and looking for additional role(s) to add to his portfolio.