Our private equity activities are distinct from our Corporate Finance business, but, with staff working in both areas, it creates meaningful synergies.
We do not operate a formal managed fund. Our investment monies are provided by the members of the Beltrae Partners team and, where appropriate, through partnering with HWNI’s, VC’s, professional contacts and trade partners.
Our Private Equity activity gives us the ability to understand our client’s operating environment, in a way that can only come from owning a business. It allows us to demonstrate a depth of experience, doing the very things we advise others to do.
Beltrae Partners has, to date, acquired majority and minority shareholdings in fourteen businesses - eight of which were previously family owned.
Our investee businesses now employ over 400 people in N.Ireland, and cover a range of sectors - engineering and distribution, to services, healthcare and media. The total investment to-date in these businesses is in excess of £50m. The deal sizes of these acquisitions have ranged from £1m to £15m.
Complete confidentiality is maintained throughout the acquisition process, and Beltrae Partners take a non-executive board position to represent their investment.
We do not have a particular sector focus. Our long term value based investment approach means that we concentrate on a particular set of business characteristics. Typically these would be:
Mature (often family owned) cash generative business
Shareholder / manager(s) seeking an exit
An incumbent management team which is enthusiastic about taking the business forward
Opportunity to grow the business (organically or by acquisition) through a re-energised and equity incentivised management team
Where necessary, the introduction of a strong MBI candidate to replace the exiting owner
At any point in time we will be working with a pool of high quality management buy-in candidates on projects which are in various stages of completion, however, we are always interested in finding other opportunities which have broadly similar characteristics to those listed.
In 2022 we combined with 2 clients to acquire the Premier Periclase business in Drogheda and subsequently sold this onto the major French infratructure investor, Meridiam and their Irish joint venture partner Gyrogy.
In addition to the ‘old economy’ investment opportunities sought (as outlined above) we have invested in a select number of technology companies which have compelling business models backed by strong IP. Examples of this are PathXL Ltd, which was successfully sold to the global healthcare company Philips, and Neurovalens Ltd which to-date has raised over £6m in VC led funding and is bring ‘game-changing’ technology to healthcare.
A summary of some of our investments to date is provided below:
Premier Periclase (successful exit to Meridiam and Gyrogy)
Modiushealth (Neurovalens Ltd) (current investment)
Brookvent (current investment)
The Brunch Box Sandwich Company Ltd (current investment)
Kitchenmaster-NI (minority investment retained after successful majority exit)
Ni4 Kids Ltd (current investment)
PathXL Ltd (successful exit to Philips)
Ploesti retail park (successfully exited)
Cloughey Caravan Park Ltd (successfully exited)
Tyrone Crystal Ltd (successfully exited)
MMW Ltd (successfully exited)