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In Profile: Mayfair Equity Partners

Mayfair Equity Partners' Bertie Aykroyd with Waqqas Ahmad and Daniel Sasaki and Kunal Dasgupta
Bertie Aykroyd, Waqqas Ahmad, Daniel Sasaki, Kunal Dasgupta, Mayfair Equity Partners
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  • GP is committed to investing 80% of its capital in the UK & Ireland
  • Maiden fund closed on £400m after two years on the road
  • Firm has made four investments to date, with a further two "mature" in the pipeline

Led by a host of former LDC directors, Mayfair Equity Partners closed its first fund in 2016. Kenny Wastell speaks to managing partner Daniel Sasaki about building the team and delving into the unchartered territory of fundraising

"At LDC we found that in the London market, unlike in the regions, there was a gap in the market for an investor that had two qualities," says Mayfair Equity Partners managing partner Daniel Sasaki. "The first of these is to be focused from a sector standpoint – and in our case we chose to concentrate on the technology and consumer sectors. The second is to be an investor that goes back to the roots of private equity in this country, with a focus that is primarily about choosing teams instead of assets.”

With a plan in place to fill this gap in the market, Mayfair was founded towards the end of 2014, when Sasaki left his role as head of LDC's London office to set up his own firm. The new GP subsequently hired a host of LDC's London-based investment directors including Waqqas Ahmad, Bertie Aykroyd and Kunal Dasgupta.

There is both a financial and an investment objective associated with LPs seeking co-investments. They get more visibility into the management team and the value-add the general partner brings to the portfolio company" – Daniel Sasaki, Mayfair Equity Partners

Sasaki explains that in order to complement the investment team, the founding partners set about introducing additional senior team members in portfolio roles. These included a further two former LDC team members – Maria Carradice and Rob Curwen – and former Blue Rubicon director Nick Keegan. "Those portfolio directors have domain expertise in operations, in finance and tax structuring, and in marketing and brand building," explains Sasaki. "Those three groups of business processes are important but very often under-invested in by fast-growing mid-market businesses."

Venturing into the unknown
Mayfair closed its maiden vehicle in September 2016 on £400m, around two years after the firm was first launched. Sasaki explains the GP was somewhat fortunate in its timing of the fundraising and was able to capitalise on strong investor appetite for mid-market private equity funds. "Fortunately for us we were able to have quite a strong first closing quite early on," he says. "We were targeting a £350m fund and we held our first close on around half the capital in April 2015, which was less than six months into our fundraising." Given that many LPs were actively looking to increase allocations to the asset class, Sasaki says, there was a palpable receptiveness to assess Mayfair's investment model.

Due to the senior management team’s history at LDC, which is exclusively a balance-sheet investor, Mayfair started life with no LP connections, Sasaki explains. Triago was enlisted as a placement agent to build that network. "We worked with them to focus our efforts on meeting sophisticated investors who had an interest in increasing their allocations to the mid-market – or those who were allocating capital to it for the first time, with the long-term strategy of being players in that market," says Sasaki.

The fundraising process was further boosted, Sasaki explains, by Mayfair’s approach to co-investment, with around half its deals generating co-investment opportunities for LPs. As the GP makes both growth capital and buyout investments in established and emerging companies alike, it enables the firm to offer different co-investment opportunities for each of its institutional investors dependent on their individual profiles.

Daniel Sasaki of Mayfair Equity Partners

We were targeting a £350m fund and we held our first close on around half the capital in April 2015, which was less than six months into our fundraising" – Daniel Sasaki, Mayfair Equity Partners

"There is both a financial and an investment objective associated with LPs seeking co-investments," says Sasaki. In addition to the low- or no-fee nature of such opportunities, he explains, it also offers institutional investors an opportunity to get to know their GPs better. "They get more visibility into the management team and the value-add the general partner brings to the portfolio company," he says. "It helps them make decisions about whether they want to re-up, what strategies are working for them and how to allocate capital going forward – to that general partner or other GPs that have similar strategies. It also makes them more able to choose general partners because they learn from their own experience of being directly exposed to the underlying asset class."

Aside from its co-investment activities, Mayfair’s maiden fund has relatively standard mid-market terms, with regards to management fees, carry and hurdle, Sasaki says. The vehicle attracted commitments from institutional investors from the UK, continental Europe, the Middle East and north Africa, including pension funds, asset managers, funds-of-funds, sovereign wealth funds and family offices. According to unquote" data, LPs include the European Investment Fund, Hermes GPE and Goldman Sachs Private Equity Group.

Tried and tested
Owing to the Mayfair partners' track records, the firm will primarily look to invest in the technology and consumer sectors across the UK and Ireland. Sasaki explains the firm has assured investors that 80% of its capital will be invested in the region. “I’ve spent my whole career in these two sectors. It started by accident because I joined a private equity business that happened to be run by two senior people whose backgrounds were in the consumer and tech sectors,” says Sasaki. “But it isn’t an accident that I’ve stayed focused on those sectors and that, as we built the business model at LDC, we didn’t expand away from those sectors.”

Sasaki explains that such a strategy enables the firm to target companies that are becoming established but require guidance and expertise in order to implement processes and undertake international expansion strategies. "In the consumer sector and the technology sector there are just a great wealth of businesses that are at that stage," says Sasaki. "We’re rigidly focused on those two sectors and we’re rigidly focused on backing management teams. But beyond that we try to be as flexible as possible. We’ll do big deals and small deals, we’ll do buyouts and growth capital deals, we’ll do carve-outs and we’ll partner with other people.”

The firm's first vehicle has made four investments to date, with Sasaki anticipating it will make a total of between 10-12 during the course of its lifespan. The GP's first four deals include the management buyout of Middlesex-based Hotels & More, the acquisition of an £82m controlling stake in London-based sushi restaurants chain Yo Sushi, an investment in energy business Ovo, and the £50m buyout of fishing tackle business Fox International. Sasaki adds that there are a further two potential assets "that are quite mature in our pipeline right now".

Click here to keep track of Mayfair’s investments and fundraising activity on unquote” data

Key People

• Daniel Sasaki, founder and managing partner, launched Mayfair in 2014 after six years at LDC. He joined LDC in 2008 and was named head of the firm’s London team in January 2011. Prior to LDC he worked for technology and media corporate finance house Hemisphere Capital and has worked at Credit Suisse First Boston and Softbank.

• Waqqas Ahmad, founder and partner, left his role as investment director in LDC’s London team in November 2014 after six years with the firm. While at LDC he worked on deals including Avelo, Easynet Global Services, Blue Rubicon and Learndirect. Prior to LDC, he spent eight years at KPMG, leaving his role as associate director in the private equity team in 2008.

• Bertie Aykroyd, founder and partner, was also previously an investment director at LDC. He left his role in the London team at LDC in August 2014 after five years with the GP. While at the firm, he worked on deals including Mountain Warehouse, Ocean Outdoor, Fever-Tree, D&D London and Atcore Technology. Prior to LDC he spent four years at Barclays.

• Kunal Dasgupta, founder and partner at Mayfair, left his role as an investment director at LDC in February 2014. In his previous role he worked on investments including uSwitch, OnApp and Twofour Group. Prior to joining LDC he worked on the technology and telecommunications team at Apax and held equity research analyst roles at JP Morgan and Jefferies.

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