Richard Charrington

Area of expertise

• Corporate finance
• Structuring investment
• Corporate tax
• Corporate administration
• Trusts

Responsibilities

Richard leads our Mauritius business, with Griffon Solutions having been acquired by Hawksford in July 2022.

A UK Security & Futures (SFA) accredited commodities and corporate finance specialist, Richard has a particular focus on structuring investment into Africa, trade, project and shipping finance.

He started his career as a commodity trader with C. Czarnikow in 1980, subsequently bought out by the Kuok Organisation of Malaysia, and went on to specialise in trade finance with Credit-Anstalt Bank. In 1992, Richard joined Ceres Capital International specialising in South African debt/equity conversions and corporate restructuring, and concluding some US$1.5billion in debt conversions. In 1997, he ran an emerging market sovereign debt fund for Rand Merchant Bank of South Africa. The fund grew substantially up until 2001, when it was securitised in a US$350m CDO by Deutsche Bank.

In 2000, Richard took over The Ceres Group, with offices in London, Namibia and Mauritius, and developed the business into a bespoke corporate finance house with focus on financial engineering, project finance, asset trading and debt brokerage with particular attention to Africa. To date, the Group has closed over 20 billion Rands worth of business in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2015, Richard set up Griffon Solutions a corporate services and management company. He now sits on the Mauritian boards of several JSE-listed companies and four African investment funds, with assets under management of some US$1000m, and advises on their international operations and expansion.