ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS
News

Silverfleet Capital announces change at top management level

Cate­gory: People
28. Novem­ber 2018

Munich, London — Gareth Whiley (pictu­red) will take over the role of Mana­ging Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal from Neil MacDou­gall on April 1, 2019, when he will become Chair­man of the Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in “buy to build.” In this new role, MacDou­gall will remain a member of the invest­ment commit­tee of Silver­fleet Capital’s funds; MacDou­gall will also serve in an advi­sory capa­city to the 15 part­ners in the London, Munich, Paris and Stock­holm offices.

Neil MacDou­gall joined Silver­fleet Capi­tal in 1989 and has been a Mana­ging Part­ner since 2004. In 2007, he led the buy-out of Silver­fleet Capi­tal (then “PPM Capi­tal”) from the insu­rance group Pruden­tial plc. For 14 years, he headed Silver­fleet Capi­tal as Mana­ging Part­ner. Under his aegis, Silver­fleet deve­lo­ped into one of the leading Euro­pean private equity houses in the mid-market segment. Gareth Whiley joined the firm in 1997, became a part­ner in 2002 and was respon­si­ble for a number of successful invest­ments in Europe. Most recently, he led the invest­ment acti­vi­ties in the UK and Scan­di­na­via as well as in the consu­mer goods sector.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal prepa­res for next phase of growth with leader­ship change. Curr­ently, the 30-strong invest­ment team mana­ges more than 1.2 billion euros; the invest­ments, based in the UK, Ireland, the DACH region, France, the Bene­lux count­ries and Scan­di­na­via, each have an enter­prise value of between 20 and 300 million euros. In the future, Silver­fleet Capi­tal will conti­nue to pursue its 30-year proven invest­ment stra­tegy — the focus will remain on buil­ding inter­na­tio­nal market-leading companies.

“I am proud to have been able to lead Silver­fleet for many years and to have been actively invol­ved in its growth,” explains Neil MacDou­gall. “The change in leader­ship was inten­si­vely prepared and also agreed with our inves­tors. Gareth Whiley has played an important role in Silverfleet’s success over the past 20 years and his appoint­ment as Mana­ging Part­ner is the logi­cal step — I look forward to conti­nuing to work closely with him.” Gareth Whiley adds, “It is a parti­cu­lar honor to be given respon­si­bi­lity for such an outstan­ding team and the joint deve­lo­p­ment of the company. Neil MacDou­gall has made an outstan­ding contri­bu­tion — I’m deligh­ted that he will conti­nue to guide the further expan­sion of our platform.”

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 30-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a whole­sa­ler and retailer of women’s fashion head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a British manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a UK provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin produ­cer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services to Euro­pean private equity firms (invest­ment multi­ple 3.8x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe, as well as Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (2); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage pellets (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

Subscribe newsletter

Here you can read about the latest transactions, IPOs, private equity deals and venture capital investments, who has raised a new fund, how Buy & Build activities are going.

Get in touch

Contact us!
fyb [at] fyb.de