Eric Lawson-Smith

International M&A adviser to Internet companies. Joined Arma Partners in late 2009. Partner and head of the firm's global Internet practice. Arma is Europe's leading mid-market M&A advisor serving Internet, technology and telecoms companies. Eric has advised on: - sale of online video advertising company goviral to AOL - sale of French eCommerce group PriceMinister to Rakuten of Japan - sale of the Middle East's leading financial data company Zawya to Thomson Reuters - sale of SaaS enterprise data management company Cadis to Markit - sale of leading UK lead generation company uSwitch to LDC - acquisition by BC Partners of leading international online car rental platform CarTrawler Prior to Arma, he was a Founding Partner at LongAcre Partners, which was sold to Jefferies & Co Inc. in June 2007. LongAcre were the leading mid-market media and Internet M&A advisers in Europe and closed over Euros 14bn deals between 2002/07. At Jefferies from 2007/09, Eric was Head of European Digital Media and a Managing Director. His early stage investments include Bebo (social networking, acquired by AOL for $880m), iXcellerate (Moscow's leading colo datacentre), Movellas (social publishing) and Performance Horizon (affiliate DSP).