Beechbrook Capital
Richard Smart is currently the Managing Director at Beechbrook Capital, previously holding roles as Managing Director at NatWest Corporates and Institutions, Board Member at RBS Invoice Finance, and various positions at Royal Bank of Scotland. With a background in finance and accounting, Richard has extensive experience in managing teams, originating and executing complex transactions, and working in strategic roles in the banking sector.
Beechbrook Capital
Founded in 2008, Beechbrook is one of the most experienced and successful European private debt managers with over 1.1 billion Euros raised to date across eight funds and two distinct strategies. We provide mainly private debt (and small allocation of equity co-investments) to performing lower mid-market businesses in northern and western Europe (UK & Ireland, Nordics, Benelux, DACH and Poland). We often fill a funding gap faced by SMEs as banks are less active in the space than they have been historically and we benefit from extensive relationships with private equity firms, corporate finance houses and banks, helping us to originate strong deal flow and high quality investment opportunities. Beechbrook supports company growth strategies, add-ons and private equity buy-outs and focuses on companies with an enterprise value of between €10m to €150m in the following sectors: business services, media and telecoms, industrials, healthcare and consumer & leisure. Investment bite sizes range from €2m to €25m and we have made over 75 investments in the European lower mid-market. Our investors include leading institutional investors, family offices, HNWIs, British Business Bank Investment Limited and the European Investment Fund. Beechbrook is currently investing two funds with distinct strategies: the Private Debt Funds provide debt to private equity-owned companies across northern Europe and the UK SME Credit Funds provide debt to owner-managed and family-owned companies in the UK.