DYNSHAW ITALIA IS FINANCIAL DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR 2006
(20 November 2006)

Dynshaw Italia, Finance Director & Chief Operating Officer of Cobra Beer, has been named the Financial Director of the Year2006 (for Growing Business) at the Accountancy Age Awards. The ceremony, which took place on 15th November, recognises the success stories of the year in the financial and accountancy fields. Italia came out on top in a competitive category, with the judges saying of him: “This is a great man in a great company… He’s clearly a man on the way up, and a man more than able to support the kind of entrepreneurial business in which he works.”

After receiving his award, Italia said: “I am delighted – it’s a great honour to be chosen as the Financial Director of the Year for Growing Business, especially given the calibre of candidates. This has been a tremendous year for Cobra – we secured a large amount of investment in the summer enabling us to launch our biggest-ever TV advertising campaign; and we have significantly increased our operations in India – where we are growing at a tremendous rate. We were also awarded a record 12 gold medals for our beers at Monde Selection – World Quality Awards.”

Cobra Beer is currently one of the UK’s fastest growing beer brands and Italia has been hugely influential in its progress. He was instrumental in raising the investment of £27.5 million – the largest amount Cobra has obtained to date.Italia explained: “Since Karan Bilimoria started Cobra Beer in 1989 with £20,000 of student debt, we have always strived to raise capital through a number of innovative ways. Raising finance is an ongoing challenge for SMEs and it’s therefore crucial to be able to find new and different ways of doing this in order to grow a business.”

Of the £27.5m raised in July 2006, £25m of this was in the form of unsecured loan notes (through a flexible PIK instrument) issued by OZ Sculptor Finance Ireland investment funds managed by Och-Ziff Management Europe Limited. The money is now being used to fund the company’s medium-term growth across all its markets.