Private Equity
We buy established SMEs with our own capital, build them and realise the value.
We buy established SMEs outright, with our own capital. A team goes in. The people who make the business work stay, and the systems catch up with what the business already does. Once it can be seen clearly it can be improved, on price and margin before cost, and what works once is made to work everywhere. That is the order the 8-stage model sets, and at the end of it the value is realised, by sale, merger, spin-off or partial release.
How an investment works
What we buy, and on what basis
We underwrite the business that exists today, and then what it could be worth as part of something larger.
01What must be true
Sustainable earnings, reliable cash conversion and customers who would stay under new ownership.
02How we assess a business
Commercial, operational, technology and management diligence, tested against a downside case.
03What the business could be worth
Shared systems, buying power and routes to market it could not reach alone, priced as upside.
04What we build before completion
The value-creation thesis, the Day One plan and the intended route to realising value.
How value is realised
The work ends in a transaction, prepared before the process starts and run with advisers.
01Sale
To a trade buyer or another investor.
02Merger
Where two businesses are worth more combined.
03Spin-off or carve-out
Of a part worth more elsewhere.
04Partial release
Taking value out while continuing to own the business.
What must be true before we buy5
- Sustainable earnings and reliable cash conversion
- Customers who would stay under new ownership
- Customer and supplier concentration understood
- Founder dependency identified and reducible
- A financing case the business can service as it stands
How we assess a business7
- Acquisition screening and investment thesis
- Commercial and operational diligence
- Technology, data and cyber diligence
- Management assessment and capability gaps
- Operational and commercial inputs to earnings quality and maintainable EBITDA
- Working capital, maintenance and growth capex
- Downside case and sensitivity
What the business could be worth inside a larger group5
- Shared systems and reporting it would otherwise build alone
- Buying power and supplier terms at greater scale
- Finance and technology capability it could not carry by itself
- Routes to market it could not open alone
- Digitisation and automation not yet done, priced as upside rather than value paid for
What we build before completion5
- Value-creation thesis and priorities
- What must be preserved, in writing
- Day One plan and decision rights
- Financing-case inputs and lender pack support
- The intended route to realising value, and what would make it achievable
01
Examples of experience behind the investment side
Direct ownership across 30+ years, in businesses where customers, suppliers, stock, people, property and cash had to work every day.
One half of the firm comes from owning businesses outright, where there is nobody else to hand the problem to. That is the half that decides what we buy, what we protect and what we change first. The other half comes from enterprise operating, technology, risk and transaction leadership across 60+ markets, including M&A and divestiture workstreams approaching $80bn, which is what makes the buying, building and realising possible.
Businesses owned and run by the principals
Food and drink manufacturing5UK, selling to supermarkets, retailers, wholesalers and direct to consumers online
- Acquired an established food and drink manufacturer as owner and led its move to AI-enabled operations
- Automated 80% of the production line with robotics and process automation, cutting costs 50% and accelerating time to market 30%
- Rebuilt planning, finance and data with predictive intelligence, improving inventory planning precision by 90%
- Drove e-commerce and digital growth, selling direct to consumers online alongside supermarkets, retailers and wholesalers
- Set the AI strategy, operating model, governance and risk controls for the business
Convenience retail and hospitality525+ years of multi-site ownership across UK retail and hospitality
- Acquired underperforming sites and converted them into stronger convenience formats, holding them for the long term
- Rebuilt a former hardware shop as a full-format convenience store, traded it for 14 years and realised the value through a sale
- Operated a multi-store portfolio under the UK’s leading symbol-group brands
- Built long-standing commercial relationships with the country’s largest food, retail and wholesale suppliers
- Founded and ran a 140-cover restaurant for 14 years, built from the ground up, directing fresh supply chains, kitchen operations and service standards
Wholesale, merchandising and production3Japan, Hong Kong, India, the UK, mainland Europe and the US
- Built and ran a wholesale and distribution business end to end, owning the profit and loss, balance sheet, staff and premises
- Produced branded merchandise and promotional goods in-house for customers including a luxury car maker, a global motor manufacturer, a luxury fashion house and a consumer electronics group
- Sourced and imported luxury goods from Asia, running distribution and merchandising for customers
Foreign exchange trading and research3Proprietary trading, then independent research
- Founded and ran a proprietary foreign exchange venture, owning portfolio strategy, risk, P&L and the balance sheet
- Traded major currency pairs through periods of high market volatility, delivering 6% annual returns while managing liquidity and market exposure
- Relaunched the name as an independent research programme applying statistical methods to forecasting
Enterprise roles behind the operating model
Global insurance9$275bn revenue, 185 million customer relationships, 30+ countries
- Drove the technology, operations and risk workstreams on mergers, acquisitions and divestitures approaching $80bn, from integration and transition services to sovereign data requirements
- Integrated technology and risk across a $67bn acquisition serving 80 million members, ring-fencing competitor data to meet the deal’s competition commitments
- Separated $6.3bn and $5.36bn businesses across six Asia-Pacific markets, standing each up on its own systems and exiting transitional services three months early
- Built global capability centres in India, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong, moving 1,200 roles, cutting run costs 21% and accelerating digital product time to market 11%
- Rebuilt the claims, customer operations and service platform for 1.1 million customers in India, switching off the old platform within the regulator’s cost limits in a business growing 28% a year
- Delivered the technology, operations and risk readiness that met Saudi Arabia’s regulatory and localisation requirements, taking the business in as the first international insurer licensed to operate there through a branch
- Scaled an API-first platform to 250,000 customers across Asia, the Gulf and 16 African markets, keeping local market costs low and opening a new stream of claims processing fee income
- Set AI and cloud governance across 30+ markets as Chair of the Ethical AI and Cloud Centres of Excellence, covering data residency, cybersecurity, model and third-party risk ahead of the EU AI Act and DORA
- Governed technology risk across joint ventures in nine countries, and held a statutory board seat at a data and AI centre of excellence, setting control standards and challenging risk and capital allocation through rapid growth
Investment and wholesale banking10$50bn+ revenue, 40 million customers, 60+ countries
- Restructured 1,100 roles into a Basel-aligned three lines of defence model, separating first-line control ownership from second-line oversight and cutting headcount 29%
- Directed the operational and technology risk taxonomy across 60 markets under a consent order, working with regulators and executive committees to cut risk exposure 17%
- Advised board risk and audit committees globally, cutting high-risk exposure 26% and audit findings 15%
- Automated production controls and assurance across more than 50 tier one suppliers, exposing thematic and concentration risk and cutting run costs 35%
- Halved the new product approval cycle from twelve weeks to six by building compliance and architecture standards into product control
- Cut technology control costs 22% across banking and capital markets by consolidating control functions into a shared, standards-led service hub
- Sustained 98% uptime across fixed income trading platforms and cut priority one incidents 31%
- Led the remediation programme under supervisory oversight, applying the central bank’s testing framework across the investment bank and engaging regulators in the US, Hong Kong and Singapore
- Built a machine-learning intelligence function that sharpened early warning on cyber, geopolitical and fraud threats, then extended the function from the investment bank across 30+ markets
- Chaired credit committees governing wholesale lending under $20m delegated authority, supporting 4% business growth
Energy trading and utilities5$43bn revenue, 28 million customers, UK, Ireland and North America
- Established an enterprise risk management framework giving the group a single view of risk, unlocking $15m of capital for reinvestment and cutting risk exposure 34%
- Merged the trading, retail and wholesale technology and operations models into shared services, cutting expenditure 24%
- Migrated mission-critical trading platforms to hybrid cloud, retiring $22m of legacy run costs
- Protected £2bn of card payments by implementing the payment card security standard, sustaining £1.2bn of public sector contracts
- Shaped the national smart metering security standards with the energy department, ahead of the national rollout
Consulting and professional services5$31bn revenue, 150+ countries
- Built the firm’s technology risk function from inception to 150 staff on a $40m cost base
- Directed client-facing technology, operations and risk transformation across investment banks, exchanges and industrials
- Contributed 8 to 12% of annual consulting revenue through client engagements
- Led post-merger rationalisation after a major acquisition, delivering a 14% cost efficiency gain
- Advised on government and national infrastructure mandates, and delivered a national data protection programme across banking clients
Global telecommunications3$39bn revenue, 20 million customers, 65+ countries
- Led network and application standardisation, acquisition integration and assurance across more than 65 countries
- Cut costs 18% and increased network capacity 19% through the company’s most demanding period
- Delivered lawful intercept capability and ran a threat intelligence exchange with government, within critical national infrastructure