BVCA announces South East Management Team Awards shortlist

The shortlisted companies in the South East British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) Management Team Awards 2017 have now been announced. Produced in association with Grant Thornton UK LLP, the awards recognise and reward brilliant businesses up and down the country that have been backed by private equity and venture capital investors, as part of our annual celebration of UK companies. The South East award winners will be announced and presented with their prizes at next week’s Management Team Awards ceremony, as part of the BVCA Chairman’s Dinner. They will then go forward into the national final to compete against our other regions, before the winners are announced at the BVCA Gala Dinner on 30 November in London.
The shortlist for the South East Management Team Awards 2017:
ACC Aviation
backed by: YFM Equity Partners
Specialist in aircraft leasing, charter and supplying and refurbishing aircraft seating.
Phil Aird-Mash led an MBO of the company in 2014, working with YFM. Since then the team have led the business through across-the-board change, internationalising, developing more strategic and long-term customer relationships, investing in people and technology, all leading to rapid and profitable growth.
Blackrock PM
backed by: Dunedin
Specialist consultancy, providing expert witness, construction consulting and tribunal services.
David Barry and his team have built a leading reputation in their specialist area of construction dispute reporting, achieving rapid and highly profitable growth. Private equity funding has supported the internationalisation of the business. The team is now focussed on broadening their range of services in order to continue this impressive growth in the years to come.
Blis
backed by: Beringea, Endeit Capital, Unilever Ventures
Developer of advanced location technology, providing businesses with data and behavioural insights. .
Founder Greg Isbister and his team have built and held a leading position in the global location-based behavioural analytics sector, successfully internationalising across some exceptionally competitive jurisdictions and showing very strong revenue growth. The business is a great marker of the UK as a centre of excellence in the marriage of technology and marketing.
Captify PM
backed by: Panoramic Growth Equity, Smedvig Capital
Developer of proprietary search intelligence technology for digital advertising.
Captify showed phenomenally rapid growth in 2016. The company now has a genuinely international presence with a roster of blue-chip clients and is now second only to Google in search intelligence. Dominic Joseph and Adam Ludwin have built this business from start-up in a very competitive space in only six years.
CIPHR
backed by: LDC
Provider of HR software as a service & HR systems
Chris Berry and his team have built a very successful, profitable HR software business, working closely with LDC since the MBO. The judges particularly noted the impressively executed transition to SAAS, generating high levels of repeat revenues.
Clifford Thames
backed by: LDC
Creates and manages data to repair and maintain vehicles for manufacturers, repairers, leasing and fleet companies.
Since the MBO of this long-established business in 2014, Calvin Barnett and his team have truly embraced the freedom and resources available through private equity backing. They have taken an established but static brand and through investing in technology, brand and acquisitions, have transformed Clifford Thames into an international market leader.
Defaqto Thames
backed by: Synova
Researcher of financial products to provide intelligence to support financial decision-making.
Zahid Bilgrami and his team have built a research and data analytics business in financial services, with its product ratings highly regarded in the industry, entrenching its position and retained revenues. Aggressive investment in its data sets is now building usage across their various end users with the team’s sights now set on expanding internationally.
Gymbox
backed by: Business Growth Fund
Innovative gym and fitness brand.
The Gymbox team have built a powerful, recognised brand, generating premium returns in a very competitive sector. Two rounds of BGF growth funding have enabled them to roll out to new sites across London.
Hollywood Bowl
backed by: Epiris
The UK's largest ten pin bowling alley chain.
Steve Burns and his team have done an outstanding job since the MBO in 2014. They took an unprepossessing business and transformed the customer experience whilst re-energising the culture and delivering top and bottom line improvement through a blend of organic and acquisitive growth. The culmination of their efforts was the flotation in September 2016.
Leisure Pass
backed by: Primary Capital and now Exponent
A sightseeing and tourism technology specialist which develops and manages city passes.
Darren Evans and Tom Enraght-Moony led the MBO in 2012 and have since expanded the business across 19 cities and invested in the technology platform. For a business with only 22 employees, growth has been outstanding, as well as consistent and profitable, culminating in a successful secondary buy-out in December 2016.
Odeon
backed by: Terra Firma
The largest cinema chain in the UK.
A great example of an under-invested brand being liberated and transformed by fresh management under private equity ownership in a tough sector. The team refreshed the brand, invested in refurbishment and defied industry norms in removing booking fees, achieving impressive financial growth.
P2i
backed by: Ombu Group, Unilever Ventures
Nanotechnology development company specialising in liquid repellent protection.
The company has developed leading technology in waterproof coatings. Its commitment to R&D enabled Ady Moores and his team to transition in 2016 into the smartphone market, where it has won major contracts and has been deployed in over 180 million devices. The business is facing head on the challenge to sustain and grow its position in a very fast moving technology.
PEI Media P2i
backed by: LDC
Financial media group that focuses on global alternative assets.
The team at PEI have built a market-leading, highly identifiable publications group across verticals in private equity, infrastructure, debt and other investment sectors. The judges were impressed with their commitment to continuous investment in products through the recession and the breadth of the senior management team, together with their strong employee culture.
Phlexglobal
backed by: Bridgepoint Development Capital (2014-16) and now Vitruvian Partners
Provider of technology-enabled document management solutions.
Rick Riegel joined as CEO following Bridgepoint’s investment in 2014 and has driven significant organic growth whilst mitigating the potential loss of momentum which is a risk of leadership change. At the same time the business continued to invest in their technology platform and are diversifying into related services. A successful secondary in December 2016 provided validation for their achievements.
Pizza Hut Restaurants
backed by: Rutland Partners
Restaurant chain, specialising in American-Italian cuisine.
Jens Hofma and his team seized the opportunity offered to them by new private equity owners in 2012 to embark on an ambitious transformation of the brand, culture and financial performance of the business. The judges were impressed with the team’s total engagement with the company and its employees, and the energy and skill deployed to achieve rapid change across 267 sites and 8,500 employees.
Streetbees Restaurants
backed by: BGF Ventures, Octopus Ventures
Developer of consumer research technology.
Tugce Bulut and her team are disrupting the consumer research market, using in-house built technology to redefine the relationship with consumers through what they have coined ‘Conversational Research’. The business has internationalised across 87 countries and won an impressive roster of clients in an exceptionally short period of time.
SwiftKey
backed by: Octopus Ventures, Index Ventures, Accel Partners Ventures
Developer of smart prediction technology for mobile typing.
John Reynolds and Ben Medlock built SwiftKey’s technology from scratch, developing it to be recognised by many as the best mobile touchscreen keyboard software, working with leading venture capital firms and then negotiating a successful exit to Microsoft for US$250million last year, a market-leading return for their investors.
Notes to editor
- The BVCA Management Team Awards, produced in association with Grant Thornton UK LLP, are the only awards to celebrate the achievements of private equity and venture capital-backed management teams. There are eight regions in total, each with their own judging panel, and all winners are automatically forwarded to the national final, the results of which will be presented at the BVCA Annual Gala Dinner on 30 November in London. Please click here for more information..
- The South East judging panel consists of: John Garner, LDC; Nigel Owens, YFM Equity Partners; James Titmuss, Living Bridge EP LLP; Peter Armitage, Key Capital Partners; Andrew Ross, Endless LLP; Andrew Cope, FMG; Andy Ducker, Chaucer Foods..
- The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) is the industry body for the UK private equity and venture capital industry. The BVCA has over 600 member firms, representing the vast majority of UK-based private equity and venture capital firms and their advisers..
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