Direct Private Equity Investments

Invest in private companies

Entrepreneurial, dynamic and employing close to 16 million people, SMEs are the lifeblood of the UK economy.

These companies have the potential to generate significant investment returns from the growth that an equity incentivised management can deliver, using the value creation techniques that private equity investors bring.

We enable clients to make direct investments in private companies, which are generating at least £1m EBITDA and are run by experienced management teams.  The investment may be to support ambitious growth, enable a management buyout or to replace the equity of an exiting shareholder.

Access to this asset class is not easily available to private investors, but through Connection Capital you can choose to invest in whichever of our private equity opportunities you wish, in multiples of £25,000. 

Our focus and investment goals

We target established, profitable companies that have already proven their business model and built a customer base. Most occupy the lower mid-market, roughly speaking this means companies with a value of £10m to £30m. This is an area which is often ignored by larger private equity investors and therefore offers better value. Our goal is to take these to a value of £20-50m (and sometimes more) to deliver the target return on investment of 3x plus.

We are sector agnostic and have invested across a wide range of UK businesses including e-commerce, services, leisure and manufacturing. Our client base means we can draw on the expertise, insight and experience of highly successful individuals help us appraise investments and take on an independent director role to help deliver strong growth.

Bernard Dale, Founder and Managing Partner at Connection Capital, explains how we select, structure and manage private equity and debt investments in established, profitable UK SMEs on behalf of our HNW private clients. Click the image to watch.

Our Direct Private Equity investment track record

We are the lead private equity investor in 25 UK SMEs. These companies range in size from 20 to 1,300 employees. We have a mix of both minority and majority stakes and an average investee company will double its EBITDA during our relationship.

We are also an active co-investor in deals which are led by other private equity firms. These companies are typically larger in scale and include: the agriculture and farming sector-focused bank, Oxbury; specialist medicine company Essential Pharma; banking technology firm Thought Machine; and Italian food brand Crosta & Mollica. 

Our exits have come via a mix of trade sale, secondary MBO and AIM listing.