A little over a month before Christmas more than 630 of Yorkshire's top dealmakers converged on the Royal Armouries for what is now indisputably the biggest event in the corporate calendar in Yorkshire – the 2006 Insider Yorkshire Dealmakers Awards.
Many of them would have taken part in the nominations for the awards, which aim to reward those who have worked the hardest on getting deals away. But no one outside the magazine itself would have had any idea about who was going to win one of 14 awards – including two new ones aimed at the growing industry of asset-based finance. In a change to the programme, compère Graham Liver of BBC Radio Leeds announced all bar two of the awards before dinner. But that only left the real excitement until afterwards. Because, as with last year, Dealmaker of the year and Deal of the Year, would be decided by a keypad vote by everyone there on the night. And they would have had plenty of time to decide who was worthy of the vote because last month's copy of Insider was on every table.
In the end, Garry Wilson, founder of the newly created turnaround fund Endless, won Dealmaker of the Year, while his fund's acquisition of Peter Black - its biggest deal so far - won Deal of the Year.
A worthy result then and for a worthy cause too: in the course of the evening, £6,005 was raised for the Martin House Children's Hospice in Wetherby.
Date: Thu 23rd November, 2006
Venue: The Royal Armouries, Leeds
