Hg recruits from CVC, Temasek, Carlyle for first U.S. office

Hg has brought on professionals from CVC and Temasek to help open its first U.S. office, sources familiar with the firm told Buyouts.

Gero Wittemann and Ben Meyer, both partners with Hg in New York, joined the firm in the fall of 2018 from CVC Capital Partners and Temasek, respectively. Around the same time, the firm also hired Andrew Sukawaty as chairman of Hg’s New York office. The firm’s most recent hire, Max Dewez, a principal, officially started with Hg this week after a six-year tenure at CVC.

Hg’s U.S. team now includes two partners, two principals, four senior associates and two associates. Among those, Elizabeth Broomfield, a senior associate, joined from Carlyle; Si Si, senior associate, joined from Deloitte; and Robert Citrino, an associate, joined from UBS.

The firm also temporarily brought in three people from its London headquarters: Hector Guinness, a principal, and two senior associates Louis Kinsella and Thomas Martin. These professionals will return to London in the future, at which point Hg will hire their replacements, said people familiar with the hiring process.

The firm has been interviewing candidates for the past nine months, looking for professionals with backgrounds from consultancy and investment banking to private equity training at small and large-cap firms, Wittemann told Buyouts. Hg is on the lookout for at least one more associate. “What we are trying to do is to really take the best from different kinds of people with interesting and diverse backgrounds,” Wittemann said. “We have a very big emphasis on culture—we look for people who are low-key, collaborative and driven, with a good dose of humility.”

Hg, which focuses on software investing, opened its first U.S. office in April 2019 to plant deeper roots in the North American market. The U.S. software buyout market is three times the size of the European, Wittemann said.

Previously, the firm’s professionals had flown in for meetings and due diligence. “We could have easily sent someone from Europe, but it would have taken a substantial amount of time. So we decided, why don’t we find people who can cover the U.S. market consistently,” Wittemann said.

From London, the firm invested in Rhapsody, a data liquidity platform for healthcare enterprises, which earlier this year it merged with Texas-based Corepoint.

Since launching its New York office, the firm acquired Chicago-based Litera Microsystems, a document management software company, from K1 Investment Management. Hg invested £32.1 million in Litera from its Hg Genesis 8 Fund. Most recently, the firm made an add-on to Litera with an acquisition of Workshare

Update: This report was updated to use the name Hg.

Action Item: Contact Gero Wittemann through his assistant.