Rachel Corn Kluge and Steven M. Ryan Join City Capital Advisors

CHICAGO, June 15, 2009 – City Capital Advisors, LLC, a Chicago middle market investment bank formed in 2006, is pleased to announce that two investment banking partners from William Blair & Company, Rachel Corn Kluge and Steven M. Ryan, have joined the firm this year as Managing Directors.

“We are especially delighted to have investment bankers with Rachel Corn Kluge’s and Steven Ryan’s impressive reputation, skills and track record in middle market deal-making join our team, “ said Dick King, co-founder of City Capital. “They both truly understand the value of partnering with our clients and giving them the time and attention needed to bring about the most favorable outcomes,” King added. “Our firm provides a particularly strong commitment to the middle market business community by devoting highly experienced senior investment bankers to manage each transaction from top to bottom” added Mark Timmerman the other co-founder of City Capital.

Rachel Corn Kluge has 17 years experience working with consumer product, retail and restaurant companies. She will work to expand the firm’s food and beverage, restaurant and specialty retail practice as well as handle consumer product transactions. “Due to challenges with the economy today, the middle market investment banking landscape is rapidly evolving to meet the changing needs of our clients,” observed Corn Kluge, “which underscores the importance of giving each client the senior attention, creativity and expertise required to get the best possible result out of the market.”

Rachel’s investment banking successes to date include M&A transactions and capital raises for some of the most highly-recognized brands and companies in the consumer products and retail sector and span a transaction size range from $30 million up to $23 billion. Corn Kluge has completed over 50 M&A and equity capital raising deals in various sectors including food and beverage, household products, personal care and retail. Her transaction awards include the M&A Atlas Award for Consumer Goods & Services Deal of the Year for advisory work on Wrigley Company’s acquisition by Mars, Incorporated and Berkshire Hathaway as well as Investment Dealers’ Digest’s Overall and M&A Deal of the Year for Smucker’s tax-free merger of Procter & Gamble’s Jif and Crisco brands into Smucker through a Reverse Morris Trust structure. Prior to joining City Capital, Corn Kluge spent over nine years in the Consumer and Retail Investment Banking Group at William Blair & Company where she was a partner of the firm. Prior to working in investment banking, Corn Kluge spent seven years in the Chicago assurance practice of Arthur Andersen auditing public and privately-held consumer product and retail companies and served some of the firm’s most significant clients. Corn Kluge serves on the Board of Directors of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and was a founding member of the Junior Board of Directors for the Breast Cancer Network of Strength (formerly known as Y- Me).

Steve Ryan will manage several of City Capital’s private equity fund relationships in pursuit of M&A and capital raising transactions in addition to originating and managing corporate merger and acquisition transactions. Ryan notes “To have the talent of this team of Managing Directors working day to day on our clients’ initiatives, rather than staffing with younger, less experienced bankers, is a distinct advantage for middle market clients. The value proposition at City Capital is truly unique.”

As a partner with William Blair & Company, his twenty-two year investment banking career consisted of 13 years in the Institutional Sales Department expanding the firm’s relationships with small and middle capitalization equity firms. In 2000, he joined the Corporate Finance Department in the firm’s newly formed Financial Sponsors Group where for the past nine years he managed many of the firm’s relationships with middle market private equity funds. While at Blair, Steve was instrumental in the sourcing and management of over $1 billion in M&A transaction value and more than $2 billion in equity capital financings.