Silverfleet Capital strengthens lower-mid market team with Ricardo Sommer

Munich, London — Silver­fleet Capi­tal has gained another expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment specia­list in Ricardo Sommer (photo) . With him, the Euro­pean invest­ment company expands its invest­ment team specia­li­zing in smal­ler medium-sized compa­nies, led by Alex Breb­bia and David MacKen­zie. As Prin­ci­pal, Ricardo Sommer will in future be respon­si­ble for the invest­ment acti­vi­ties in the German-spea­king region, focu­sing on compa­nies with a value of between EUR 25 and 75 million. In addi­tion, he will support the acti­vi­ties of the Lower Mid-Market team in other regi­ons from the Munich office.

Ricardo Sommer comes from the invest­ment company Quadriga Capi­tal, where he played a key role as a direc­tor in buyouts of indus­trial compa­nies and busi­ness services provi­ders in the DACH region. Previously, Mr. Sommer worked as an invest­ment mana­ger for Synte­gra Capi­tal and advi­sed clients in the private equity and indus­trial goods sectors at the Boston Consul­ting Group. He studied indus­trial engi­nee­ring with a focus on mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Berlin and holds an MBA from INSEAD.

David MacKen­zie, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal and Co-Head of Lower Mid-Market, said, “We are plea­sed to welcome Ricardo Sommer on board. He brings exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence to our team and will actively support us in further expan­ding our enga­ge­ment in the DACH region.”

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 30-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services to Euro­pean private equity firms (invest­ment multi­ple 3.8x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe, as well as Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (2); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage pellets (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).