Private equity firm, Inverleith, has closed its Inverleith Limited Partnership, its first institutional fund. The Fund closed at its hard cap of €60 million, following strong support from European investors.
Inverleith was founded by former Chairman and Chief Executive of Noble Group, Ben Thomson and former President and Managing Director of The Glenmorangie Company and Partner and Head of UK for L Capital, Paul Skipworth. Inverleith focuses on investing in businesses operating in the high growth consumer brand sectors of wellbeing, lifestyle and heritage.
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The Fund targets strategic minority or majority stakes in companies headquartered in the UK (and opportunistically in Northern Europe), with enterprise values of up to €30 million. Its strategy seeks to employ the Inverleith team’s operational insights and capabilities to internationally scale the brands, based on the products’ unique selling points and a strong, defendable market position.
The Fund is already actively deploying capital and has completed two investments including the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and Good Hemp, a producer of hemp milk, a fast-growing alternative to dairy milk.
A further, third transaction is expected to complete imminently, indicative of the strong pipeline of opportunities within Inverleith’s target market.
Paul Skipworth, Managing Partner commented, “With Inverleith Limited Partnership, we look forward to helping to build market leading brands through our hybrid of hands-on operational expertise, investment experience and deep consumer focus. A number of macro trends are creating an attractive and sustainable investment environment within our target sector. We believe Inverleith’s differentiated skills will allow us to continue to capitalise on these trends to deliver attractive returns to our investors.”
Ben Thomson, Inverleith Chairman & Partner added, “Whilst many asset classes seem to be pretty fully valued at present, we believe there is a real opportunity to invest in smaller, disruptive consumer brand companies that have great products in fast growing markets. By bringing managers from our networks, we can professionalise the team, particularly in marketing and sales, to build companies to a size where they become attractive acquisitions for trade players or mid cap private equity buyers.“
Aerius Associates acted as placement adviser and Dickson Minto provided legal advice.
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