People profiles
Maria Charash
Professional Background
- Over 20 years of experience in M&A and integration, gained in energy sector (Shell, WFS, Petredec) and banking (JP Morgan)
- Led M&A deals, developed M&A strategy, optimised portfolio, achieved smooth integration and separation and delivered synergies in excess of business case
- Extensive experience in establishing and exiting joint ventures
- Shareholder representative in JVs and partnerships
- INSEAD MBA and Fellow of ACCA (qualified accountant)
- Bi-lingual English – Russian speaker
M&A Skills & Expertise
- Experience across multiple industries, including manufacturing, distribution and infrastructure, b2b and b2c, retail, advisory, shipping and trading
- Managed various deal sizes, from multibillion deals which involved leading large teams of internal and external resources, to small deals (from $50k) that required fully hands-on approach
- Led and closed buy-side, sell-side, JV and partnership deals
- Experienced at all stages of projects, from identifying strategic fit, through due diligence, valuation, negotiation, closing and integration/separation
- Winner, the M&A Advisor ‘Transaction of the Year’ Award in 2018 for a strategic acquisition
Project Highlights
- Deal lead on projects ranging from $50k to in excess of $1bn at WFS and Petredec
- Completed 14 deals, of which 4 JVs, 1 acquisition and 9 divestments. Led a further 20+ deals, including acquisition bids, swaps and divestments
- Finance lead in a complex upstream-downstream swap deal at Shell. Successfully resolved differences in valuation with counterparty worth over $1bn
- Finance IMO Lead, carve-out and audit, shareholder circular and divestment of Stanlow refinery (UK) from Shell to Essar (over $1bn)
- Finance IMO Lead, carve-out, separation and divestment of Berre refinery (France) from Shell to Basell (over $300mln). Supervised development and implementation of new finance processes and new IT SAP module.
- IMO Lead, Shell-BG Merger, Treasury (multibillion)
- Implementation competency building, training and planning for distribution businesses implementation in partnership context in Africa and India, at Petredec