New boss appointed at private equity firm
Private equity firm NorthEdge Capital has announced it has a new boss.
Ray Stenton has taken up the role of joint managing partner as part of several key promotions at the firm.
The Manchester firm has continued to grow funds under management during 2018.
Ray has played the leading role for all of NorthEdge’s new investment activity, investing over £380m in 28 companies since the final close of NorthEdge Capital Fund I in March 2013.
He will work alongside Grant Berry in running the firm on a day-to-day basis.
Keven Parker, who joined NorthEdge in Spring 2018, has been promoted to partner and head of portfolio.
Keven brings a wealth of experience from his 12 years as partner and head of 3i’s Manchester office where he led growth and buy-out transactions, and more recently as group finance director of the £700m turnover Shepherd Group.
In the new business team, Tom Rowley has been promoted to head of Yorkshire and the North East.
Tom has played an important part in all new investment activity from the Leeds office and has been involved in ten of the firm’s deals since he joined NorthEdge in 2013, including the recent investments into Platinum Stairlifts, a designer and manufacturer of stairlifts, and Cutwel, an engineering tooling supplier.
After three years with NorthEdge and nearly twenty years in the private equity industry, John Rastrick has decided to have a career break and leave the firm.
John helped build the NorthEdge team across Yorkshire and the North East and has played a key role in building a strong portfolio across this region.
Catherine Bucko has stepped into the role of talent management to build out NorthEdge’s network of talent amongst chairman and CEOs, while Nassim Ahmed has joined the origination team based in the Birmingham office, bringing the Midlands team to five executives in total.
These promotions come on the back of a busy 2018 for the NorthEdge team.
NorthEdge Capital SME Fund held its final close in July at £120 million. Over £85m has been invested from both SME Fund I and Fund II in six investments – iPortalis, Orbis, Cutwel, ProHire, CTS and Platinum.
Two successful exits have also been achieved, selling DW3 to Masonite International, realising a 3.5x return, and Jigsaw24 to Alcuin Partners, realising a 3.1x return. Fund II, which closed in March 2016, is now over 55 per cent invested with a total of 12 investments made to date.
Grant Berry, founder and managing partner, said: “The demands of a growing business and NorthEdge’s market position require us to continually prepare for the future and we are delighted to announce these key appointments which confirm our ambitions to be one of the largest private equity firms outside of the capital.”
Ray Stenton added: “Over the past six years, NorthEdge has seen sustained growth in terms of fund raising, investment and realisations activity.
“During this period, we have worked with some exceptionally talented management teams and we have been able to attract some fantastic talent into our own team.
“I am really looking forward to working alongside Grant in continuing to drive NorthEdge forward and further consolidating our strong position in the market place.”
