Since closing its seventh buyout fund in April 2013, HgCapital, the leading European sector-focused private equity investor, has invested over £800 million of its clients’ fund capital and an additional £250 million in client co-investment into growth buyout opportunities across Europe. New deals in the last twelve months have included P&I, Zenith Leasedrive, Ullink and Radius.  Over the same period, the firm has realised £730 million of proceeds, representing an overall multiple of 2.9x original investment cost and a gross IRR of over 25%.  Recent realisations achieved in the last 12 months include Epyx, ATC, Manx, Visma and Schleich.

A key contributory factor to this performance has been the firm’s ongoing investment in its people and therefore, on the back of another active year, a total of fifteen internal promotions have been announced including the following:

In the Services Team, Andrew Land has been promoted to Partner, and both Simon Cottle and Thorsten Toepfer have been promoted to Director. Andrew joined the Firm in 2011 from Och-Ziff Capital Management and has spent the last 15 years in European private equity.  He led HgCapital’s recent acquisitions of Zenith and Leasedrive and sits on the boards of Voyage Care and Relay Software.  Simon joined the firm in 2011 from Cognetas, having worked previously at Deutsche Bank.  He currently sits on the boards of Parts Alliance and Zenith Leasedrive. Thorsten joined in 2011 from Hellman & Friedman following two years in the Industrials team at Morgan Stanley. He also recently worked on the acquisition of Radius.

In the Mercury TMT team which focuses on lower mid-market buyouts in selected TMT sub-sectors, Sebastien Briens and David Issott have also both been promoted to Director. Sebastian joined in 2011 from Quadrangle, where he was a Principal in the London office.  He was previously with Bain & Company and France Telecom. David joined HgCapital in 2012 from Apax Partners, where he spent 10 years in London and New York, prior to which he was at Lazard in London. Both Sebastian and David have been central to HgCapital’s recent investments in Relay Software and Intelliflo.

Separately, Luis Quiroga has been promoted to Director in the Renewable Power Partners team. Luis has been at HgCapital since 2009, joining from Credit Suisse’s energy and utilities team.

Nic Humphries, Managing Partner at HgCapital said, “The calibre and talent of our team are central to our ability to generate consistent returns for our clients and to build great businesses. As well as hiring the right people we work very hard at providing an environment in which our people can progress and we congratulate all those who have been promoted in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the firm. The experience and ability of our employees is the key to our achieving full potential as investors and delivering strong performance for our clients”