PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by:
Winner: LDC
Guest presenter Mark Durden-Smith began proceedings by announcing the first prized title of the night – PE Firm of the Year.
The six shortlisted finalists for this award category were: Baird Capital, Business Growth Fund, Connection Capital, LDC, Mobeus Equity and NVM Private Equity.
Baird Capital is a firm that partners with management teams to drive growth, and Clearwater Group, a water solutions company became one such partner in March 2015. Buying a majority stake in Camberley-based Clearwater meant Baird was able to bring strong sector knowledge to the growing company, with Baird MD James Benfield joining the Clearwater board.
The Business Growth Fund provided growth capital investments to Oxford-based Adestra, High Wycombe-based Olive Communications and Guildford-headquartered Giggling Squid. The BGF team also successfully exited its investment in Maidenhead-based Intrapharm which was acquired by RIEMSER Pharma GmbH.
Connection Capital – a finalist last year through its support of The Light Cinemas – has a portfolio of self-selected direct investments in private equity, commercial property and alternative asset funds.
LDC’s highly active Thames Valley office led the £23 million MBO of BOFA, the world leader in fume extraction and filtration. Through the year the local office also completed a £100m refinance for portfolio company EDM and four acquisitions for investee company Equiom. LDC recently announced an additional £1.2 billion capital commitment to support Britain’s growing mid sized companies over the next three years.
In October, Access-IS received a significant investment from Mobeus to support the management team. Mobeus had been tracking the Reading company since 2012, and the investment will be used to accelerate the growth of the electronic datacapture solutions provider.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2016
www.businessmag.co.uk
Having been established in Reading for over 25 years, NVM continues to invest in businesses in the region. After many years of supporting Kerridge Commercial Systems, NVM realised its investment in 2015 in a secondary buyout to Accel-KKR. Also in the period NVM exited its investment in Control Risks.
Sponsor, Andrew Thomson, founding partner of Henley-based independent practice HMT LLP, was invited to the main stage to announce the category winner. Thomson revealed that LDC had won the ‘PE Firm of the Year’ title – for the third year in a row.
After collecting the award trophy with his LDC colleagues, Yann Souillard, managing director of the Reading office, commented: “We are really delighted to have won this award. The Reading office of LDC invests and supports a local portfolio of businesses with combined turnover of over £400m and employing over 3,500 people – we have a long-standing commitment to support and grow business across this region.
“Last year was a busy year for us, completing the £23m MBO of BOFA, supporting four acquisitions for our portfolio company Equiom and completing a successful £100m fundraise generating a £40m dividend at portfolio company EDM.
“Activity has continued in 2016, most recently with the £75m acquisition of our portfolio company PSG by Zoopla. We remain determined and hungry to invest in the growth of business across the Thames Valley alongside our local advisory professionals and banking partners.”
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