Private Equity Professionals

Doughty Hanson names private equity co-heads

Mark Corbidge and John Leahy have been promoted to lead the firm’s private equity activities, allowing co-founders Nigel Doughty and Dick Hanson to selectively focus on deals and LP relationships.

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Doughty Hanson has elevated partners John Leahy and Mark Corbidge to co-heads of the European mid-market firm’s private equity group, which is currently investing its €3 billion Fund V.

They will report to firm co-founder and executive co-chairman Richard Hanson, who along with fellow co-founder and co-chairman Nigel Doughty, will step back from the day to day management of the private equity business.

“These appointments free up Nigel Doughty and me to focus on making investments and interacting with our investors, areas where we feel we can add the most value and which will drive returns,” Hanson said in a statement on the firm’s website.

I think the LPs are very keen for Nigel and Dick to focus on those two key areas, that’s what helps drive the business forward and determine our returns.

Mark Corbidge
Corbidge told PEO the development is not a “changing of the guard” or succession plan set in motion, but a more a formalisation of a structure already in place. “It’s really business as usual,” he said. “For a while now, Nigel has been focusing very much on investors”, while Hanson has served as a “head deal captain”.

He added: “I think the LPs are very keen for Nigel and Dick to focus on those two key areas, that’s what helps drive the business forward and determine our returns. And obviously we’re keen to maintain our slot in the top quartile” of private equity fund managers.

Both Doughty and Hanson will continue to be personally committed financially to the firm’s funds as they have in the past, Corbidge added.

Leahy leads Doughty Hanson’s portfolio management team, having joined the firm in 2002. Corbidge, who joined the firm in 2004, has led deals including Doughty Hanson’s first FIG sector deal, the €750 million purchase of TMF, a global management and accounting outsourcing services business, from Silverfleet Capital in 2008.

Founded in 1985, Doughty Hanson invests in private equity, real estate and technology ventures. Its fifth fund, closed in May 2007, is a little more than 40 percent deployed, Corbidge said. “We’ve got a very good team at the moment,” he added. “We’re well positioned going into 2010.”