Riverside looking for North West deals
US private equity firm Riverside is looking to ramp up its activity in the North West.
The firm, which has a global presence, opened an office in London last month and two senior executives have been in the region meeting intermediaries.
The investor is looking to conduct deals worth £30m-£80m and is particularly interested in taking majority stakes in companies that want to expand internationally.
Its last foray into the North West was Runcorn-based water treatment company Sentinel Performance Solutions which it sold to London-based Electra Partners for £43m in 2011.
Partner Trey Vincent told TheBusinessDesk.com: “We maintain a regular dialogue with investment banks and brokers to find out what opportunities there are and what trends they’re seeing.”
He added: “We’re the only private equity firm that’s international but still interested in small deals so we think we have an edge working with smaller companies that want to break into the US and Asia.
“We’ve had opportunities to scale up but we want to do what we do best which is zero in on small companies and help them grow bigger and better.”
New York-headquartered Riverside, which is in the middle of investing its fourth fund, is looking across all sectors but is particularly interested in energy, software, consumer and healthcare.
It is keen on the English regions because “nobody’s making anything in London,” said Mr Vincent, who hasn’t ruled out a regional office in Manchester.
Its current UK investments are Milton Keynes-based Tensator, which makes queueing cordons, and medical products firm Summit Medical Group in Gloucestershire.
