Hamilton Bradshaw unveils new venture

Hamilton Bradshaw (HB), a new private equity company firm founded by two entrepreneurs James Caan and Tony Sarin, has launched. The company has funds of £30m to invest, which have been provided by the founders and a small number of private investors.

HB plans to build a track record over the next two years before marketing to institutions to raise an investment fund of at least £100m. The team will consider deals of all sizes from start-up and expansion capital to buyouts. It has already made its first investment in Resource Partners, a company which enables public sector suppliers to receive immediate payment of an invoice’s value without recourse to borrowing or factoring. The service is particularly valuable to staffing agencies, pharmacies and nursing homes whose cash is caught up in government payment cycles. The company was achieving turnover of £183m by July 2003, but by January 2004 following HB’s investment turnover was up by over 40% at £260m.

Executive chairman James Caan founded Alexander Mann in 1985, which he built into an international human resources business and sold to Advent International in 1999. He has also started and sold three growth businesses in publishing, IT, software and franchising. In 2003 he won the title Entrepreneur of the Year at an event sponsored by PricewaterhosueCoopers.

Chief executive Tony Sarin is also a serial entrepreneur and has over the last four years founded, floated and run two public companies and sold one. Most recently he was at Numerica as a non-executive director, a role he also holds at NewMedia SPARK.

The two additional members of the team are Patrick Stephansen, chief investment officer who was formerly with private equity firm Glastad Capital UK, and Alan Pepper, investment director, who joined the group from Close Brothers Growth Capital where he was an associate director.