Ewan Lloyd-Baker, industrial merger broker and corporate financier, is spearheading a series of deals to put one of his companies, engineering specialist Southbank, in the position of increasing exports of finished goods to China. Quoted on the illiquid Channel Islands Stock Exchange, Southbank is arranging £5 million of financing for Hayward Tyler, maker of boiler circulation and sub-sea extraction pumps for the oil and gas industry and negotiating £20 million of potential acquisitions, while Lloyd-Baker also contemplates an eventual AIM float.

A partner in family merger boutique Lloyd-Baker and Associates, he sees Hayward Tyler, which has its origins in 1815 and now claims two-thirds of the world circulation pump market, as playing a crucial part in his grand design. He steered Southbank’s purchase of the company from investment group 3i two years ago in a £16 million cash, shares and debt deal and now sees a central role for it in Southbank’s ambitious growth plans – with China one of the key markets.