Private Equity Professionals

ECI promotes four

The UK firm has promoted three to partner and one to investment director following a successful fundraise last year

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ECI Partners, a UK-based mid-market private equity firm, has made four internal promotions, promoting three new partners and one investment director, according to a statement from the firm.

Mark Keeley, Paul McCreadie and George Moss, who all joined the firm as investment managers in 2008, have been promoted to partner, while Joe Garrood, who joined ECI in early 2012 as a member of its commercial team, has become investment director. All four have been promoted with immediate effect.

Keeley joined ECI’s Manchester office from Deloitte in Leeds, where he spent seven years in the corporate finance advisory team. He works across ECI’s industrials and business services sectors, and his current investments include Clarke Energy and Harvard Engineering.

McCreadie, who works across the TMT and business services sectors and is based in London, joined ECI from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was a manager in the corporate recovery department. Moss, who is also based in London, works across the consumer and industrials sector, and joined the firm from NM Rothschild & Sons’ corporate finance department.

Garrood, a member of ECI’s commercial team in London, works on assessing investment opportunities and growth initiatives post-deal. Before joining ECI he spent four years at strategy consulting firm OC&C.

In September ECI closed its tenth fund on its £500 million (€626 million; $823 million) hard-cap after just five months in market. In October the firm booked a 3x return on the sale of internet provider XLN Business Services to GSO Capital Partners, and last month picked up digital corporate communications business Investis from Gresham in a deal with an enterprise value of around £50 million (€64 million; $76 million).

“ECI’s recent transactions demonstrate that there continues to be exciting growth opportunities within the UK mid-market and these promotions reflect the strength and depth of the ECI team as we look to deploy the new fund over the next five years,” ECI managing partner Steve Tudge said.