Henderson Private Capital sets out on expansion trail

04 June 2001

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Henderson Private Capital, the private equity arm of Henderson Global Investors which is owned by Australian financial services group AMP, has been expanding out of its usual territory in Australia and Asia Pacific during the course of the last year with the aim of developing a pan-European private equity business.

The firm recently appointed Toby Boyle, formerly partner at Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, to head the European team. This currently consists of partners Riccardo Segat, ex-Compass Partners, Jonathan Agar, formerly of GE Equity and Alex Collins, previously at Advent International, and associate Florent Perin, whose background is in consulting. Boyle describes the building of a good team, set to expand to ten members over the next year, as the biggest challenge facing the firm as Henderson seeks to build the business in Europe.

Based in London, with an office in Milan, Henderson is seeking to establish a strong continental presence with the investment remit, outside the UK, primarily encompassing France, Germany and Italy. Generalist in sector, Hendersonâ€™s focus will be on mid-market companies demonstrating the potential for good growth and above-average returns, mainly buyout opportunities in the Euro 10-150m bracket but also some growth capital investments. Boyle envisages the team making 15-20 deals over a three to four year period.

Since Henderson established its European private equity team, Euro 50m has been invested in four companies, most recently the buyout of Nexus Estates from Benchmark Group. Boyle also reports one further investment in the pipeline. Looking further to the future, there is the prospect that Henderson will seek to raise external funds rather than investing purely from the balance sheet, as now. Due to Hendersonâ€™s extensive international contacts, any such fund is likely to be fairly global in appeal.