David Reid Scott has been Chairman of Hawkpoint since May 2001.
He started his career with White Weld and Co in 1969 working in both London and New York, initially in institutional equity sales and from 1973 in capital markets. In 1978 he was seconded as a senior advisor to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, responsible for the investment of the Kingdom’s foreign exchange reserves. He oversaw SAMA’s managed equity portfolios, which rose from $400 million to $18 billion during his tenure, as well as the multi-billion dollar governmental and corporate private placement programme. In 1984 he returned to London as a managing director of Merrill Lynch’s UK investment banking activities.
In 1985 he became a founding partner of Phoenix Securities which became the leading UK corporate advisory firm specialising in the financial sector. In 1996 the firm was sold to Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette (DLJ) and he became Vice Chairman of European Investment Banking and Chairman of the Financial Institutions Group. After DLJ was acquired by Credit Suisse in 2000, David worked at CSFB as Vice Chairman before joining Hawkpoint as Chairman. Over the period 2002-2006, Hawkpoint has been transformed into one of the leading European corporate advisory firms.
David has broad experience of the financial sector having been directly involved in over 175 transactions over the past fifteen years, primarily in the UK but also on the Continent, and has also advised on numerous other transactions in different sectors during this period.
In December 2006, Hawkpoint was acquired by Collins Stewart plc, the leading independent stockbroker, which wished to broaden its financial services offering, for a mixture of Collins Stewart shares and cash. Following completion, David joined the Group Executive Committee and remains as Chairman of Hawkpoint.
He has an MA in Modern History from Lincoln College, Oxford.