Public

Independent private equity house, Key Capital Partners (“KCP”), which has offices in Birmingham, Cambridge and Leeds, has provided expansion financing to contemporary furniture and home accessories retailer, Dwell (“Dwell” or “the Company”), with a £5 million equity investment.

The investment from KCP will support the significant expansion of Dwell’s store estate as the company plans to launch 33 new high street outlets over the next four years – taking its total number of UK stores to 52 by 2014.

Independent private equity house, Key Capital Partners (“KCP”), has demonstrated its ongoing support for portfolio company, Fly53, with a £1m follow-on investment in the fast-growing street fashion business.

Since KCP backed the £3.6m buy-in management buy-out (BIMBO) of Worcester-based Fly53 in March 2009, the company has increased online sales revenues by 200 per cent, and recently recorded a year-on-year uplift in Spring/Summer wholesale sales of more than 20 per cent. In the past two months Fly53 has opened four more concessions outlets in House Fraser, bringing the total to seven.

TSC Foods (“TSC”), the Yorkshire-based food manufacturer, is to embark on a major expansion plan to increase the production capacity at its facility in Scunthorpe.

TSC is a major producer of fresh soups and sauces for supermarkets and restaurants. The company is investing £2 million in new soup production plant to cook, fill and package its products in order to meet increased demand from its retail customers, which include three of the UK’s top four supermarket chains.

Key Capital Partners (“KCP”), the UK-based private equity firm founded to address the ‘equity gap’, has appointed former ISIS Equity Partners (“ISIS”) director, Andy Gregory, as a partner in its North of England team.

Andy joins KCP with a specific remit to enhance the firm’s presence in the North West. Bringing more than 12 years’ experience of private equity investing in the region, Andy will work closely with founder partner, Peter Armitage, and investment director, Mark Buttler, who led KCP’s secondary buyout of Manchester-based Neville Johnson and, more recently, the management buyout of Scunthorpe-based TSC Foods.

Before joining KCP, Andy took a year’s sabbatical following six years at ISIS. During his time at ISIS, he helped to establish the firm’s Manchester office, led investments across the North of England, in businesses such as Americana, Boldon James and Reed & MacKay, and sat on the investment committee. He also directed a national sector focus on IT and was instrumental in completing seven successful investments in the industry.

Prior to that, Andy spent time in the Manchester offices of Royal Bank Development Capital, NatWest Equity Partners (now Bridgepoint Capital) and Royal Bank of Scotland Acquisition Finance (now Leveraged Finance). He has also worked in industry as group finance director of Pennine Retail Systems, a UK software business specialising in the provision of IT systems to retailers, where he participated in a highly successful BIMBO backed by NatWest Equity Partners. Andy started his career as a graduate trainee at Arthur Andersen in Manchester, where he worked in audit and then corporate finance.

Andy said: “I had been keen to return to private equity and, from the outset, it was clear that KCP and I were a good fit. The team is extremely hands-on and focused on investing in businesses with the potential for strong organic and acquisitive growth. I look forward to working alongside them to further develop the firm’s profile in the North West and support businesses that may have disappeared off the radar screens of other private equity houses as they have raised ever larger funds.”

Peter Armitage, founding partner at Key Capital Partners, said: “Andy has been a prominent figure in the North West private equity market since the early nineties and is exceptionally well integrated within the region’s business and professional communities. With such a strong track record and experience in private equity, banking and corporate finance as well as industry, Andy is a hugely valuable asset and we are delighted with his decision to join us as we move into the next phase of our expansion.”

The Leeds office of private equity firm, Key Capital Partners (“KCP”), and Yorkshire Bank have backed the management buy-out of TSC Foods Limited (“TSC”), a leading manufacturer of soups and sauces, in a £24 million deal.

Established in 1991, Scunthorpe-based TSC produces and supplies high quality chilled and frozen sauces, soups, entrées and dressings to the retail and foodservice markets. TSC is a key supplier of private label soups and sauces to major food retailer and is the supplier of choice for soups and sauces to a number of high-profile restaurant and pub chains.

In 2008, TSC entered the branded chilled soup market through its development of the Glorious! fresh soup range. The company now plans to continue the roll-out of this brand across all of the grocery chains.