£100m fund goal for Consilia Partners after maiden deal
A NEW North West turnaround and investment firm is celebrating its maiden acquisition as it prepares to raise up to £100m for more deals.
Manchester-based Consilia Partners, which was set up in January this year to specialise in operational turnarounds and funding, has acquired a majority stake in catering equipment distributor HTG Holdings.
Based in Ipswich, HTG was previously owned by Chamonix Private Equity and comprises of two subsidiaries, Taylor UK and Hubbard Ice Systems. HTG is profitable and turns over around £10m a year.
Consilia is working with the existing managment team and will fund the growth of the business, including acquisitions in a consolidating sector.
Consilia Partners chairman Peter Smith, a serial investor, teamed up with former Grant Thornton partner David Axon to launch the firm, which is looking at opportunities not just in the UK but also in the Middle East and Africa.
Mr Smith, pictured, told TheBusinessDesk.com: “We believe we are a unique
proposition. We’re not consultants, but investors and managers who are not afraid of rolling our sleeves up and getting stuck in..
“There are quite a lot of underperforming businesses around at the moment and we felt now was a good time to launch.”
Consilia’s board funded the HTG deal, but is looking to raise £100m fund from family office wealth managers, of which Mr Smith said there are around 2,500 in the UK.
“At the moment we have been raising funds on a deal-by deal basis, but we are in the process of fundraising. We’d like to raise £100m and close the fund in mid 2011. We’re not going to institutions but to family offices.”
Mr Axon, who is currently working on a deal in Egypt, said of the HTG acquisition: “This investment is in line with our strategy of acquiring both minority and majority stakes in the UK and Middle East and North Africa SME market, where we can provide not only additional funding but also considerable management support to the businesses in which we invest.”.
