Nigel Beer, former head of corporate finance in London for KPMG, has been appointed as chairman of Hotbed, a UK private investor syndicate. He was a partner at KPMG for over 16 years and has acted as lead advisor on many large-scale private equity and corporate deals. Mr Beer has been a non-executive director for the past 18 months at Hotbed, which provides private investors with direct access to private equity and commercial property investment opportunities. He also has a stake in the company itself, which currently has 550 high net worth members who have already invested £122 million ($249 million) of equity in 56 deals with a total value exceeding £500 million.