Don Manifold, Managing Director at Equity & Advisory

Don Manifold has served in senior leadership roles in some of the largest professional services firms in the world since 2006. Manifold has advised businesses in a range of industries, including financial services, retail, information technology (IT), consumer goods, manufacturing and agriculture. He has been involved in some of South Australia’s largest transactions, including the acquisitions of Adelaide Bank and ABB Grain. Manifold also advised on the sales of S. Kidman & Co and Powerhealth.

Don Manifold has been a business professional since 1990, specializing in corporate finance since 1996. He has advised companies on more than 60 mergers, acquisitions, divestments, initial public offerings (IPO) and capital raising, with a total value exceeding $3 billion. Manifold has also produced independent valuations on businesses with a total value greater than $25 billion. Publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, Business Review Weekly, The Bulletin and Smart Company have quoted Manifold on current business topics, especially pending transactions.

Early Career

Don Manifold is from Mount Gambier, a small town in South Australia. He attended Flinders University in Adelaide from 1987 to 1991, where he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Economics (Accounting). Manifold is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants fellow. He worked in Adelaide until 1994 and worked in other cities over the next 15 years, including Melbourne, Sydney and London. In addition, Manifold advised on international transactions in Australia, Croatia, England and Papua New Guinea.

Manifold also went back to school in 2003 and earned a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) in 2004 from the Australian Graduate School of Management, which consistently ranks as one of the top business schools in the world.

Later Career

Don Manifold returned to Adelaide in 2006 as a partner with KPMG, until leaving that position in 2012. He then served as Transaction Advisory for Ernst and Young (EY) in South Australia from 2009 until 2014. Manifold’s next role at EY was Managing Partner of EY for South Australia and the Northern Territory from 2014 until 2018.

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Current Positions

Don Manifold has been the Joint Managing Director of Equity & Advisory since 2018. This corporate advisory firm is preeminent in South Australia. He also founded his own company, Manifold Advisory Partners, in that year.

Equity & Advisory, a highly esteemed corporate advisory firm in South Africa, started serving the needs of clients with complex financial transactions back in 1997. The company relies on the expertise of business professionals with decades of service in corporate advisory roles. Don Manifold is a big reason why Equity & Advisory has successfully completed over 200 transactions worth more than $8 billion dollars since its inception.

Manifold also sits on the boards of several companies, where he advises them on business transactions. He has been a board member for ADX Depot, RAM Equipment and EC Carpets since 2018 and was also on the Chairman Advisory Board for Booth Transport from 2018 to 2020. In addition, Manifold has been the Director for Whittles Body Corporate Management since 2018.

With so much board advisory experience behind him, Don Manifold has the necessary expertise to assist clients with family business advisory board chair questions, strategic planning sessions, and succession and sustainability planning. He is also well-equipped to help clients with strategic reviews in the areas of exit timing and strategy and new market entry strategy.

Don Manifold and his staff have assisted clients with numerous types of mergers, including congeneric, conglomerates, horizontal, market, and vertical. He takes a multi-step approach to client mergers that covers everything from the initial valuation to post-merger issues.

Manifold Advisory Partners

Manifold Advisory Partners provides expert advice on business transactions, which typically involve Don Manifold sitting on the boards of his clients. He and his partners provide a breadth and depth of experience that allows them to guide their clients through large-scale transactions while serving as their advisors. Manifold Advisory Partners works with clients in a variety of industrial sectors by advising on transactions that require valuations, including mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. The firm has already worked on several transactions worth billions of dollars, both in Australia and other countries. In addition to serving as a board advisor for his clients, Manifold also performs strategic reviews.

The firm’s independent expert reports (IERs) provide shareholders with a complete picture of proposed transactions, giving them confidence that they’re making an informed decision. These IERs also promote transparency, as they comply with the guidelines established by various regulatory bodies such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Listing Rules and the 2001 Corporations Act. The objective of these IERs is to determine is if a proposed transaction is fair and reasonable. Manifold Advisory Partners may find that such a transaction is reasonable but not fair when no offers have been made or the transactions involves synergies with the client.

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