Year in Review 2022-23

Sep 2022

Coniston Appoints Partner

Coniston Capital appoints Ben Kirby as Partner

Ben joins from True, where he spent four years as a Director, leading their private equity team. Prior to this, he held a senior investment position at BGF for five years and worked in the investment teams at Goldman Sachs, Greenhill and Octopus.

Nov 2022

Arbuthnot Structures a Funding Package for Masterfix

Coniston-backed Masterfix secures £4m growth finance package with Arbuthnot Commercial Asset Based Lending. This transaction provides the London based property maintenance company with additional debt facilities to support their growth plans.

Dec 2022

Coniston Backs CRC Group

Coniston Capital has backed the Management Buy Out of CRC Group, a data led B2B consultancy. This investment is the third from Coniston Capital I LP which had its final close in March 2022. Coniston invested in Masterfix in September 2021 and Harvey Jones in May 2022.

The Business

CRC Group is a data led B2B consultancy.
Through CRC Group’s core product, The Referral Rating, the business allows its clients to track and improve their customer relationships, helping to reduce churn and increase opportunities for growth.

The Deal

Founded in 2004, and now headed by Group CEO Phil Reilly, CRC Group has operations in the US and UK.
As part of the transaction, Coniston introduced Chris Jones as CFO.
Calum Smeaton joined as Chairman following the sale of TVSquared to Innovid, where he was founder and CEO.

The Future

Coniston’s investment will allow CRC Group to expand into new verticals and to continue to develop new products to sell into its blue chip client base.

Deal Team
Deal Lead – George Tsangarides
Sector – Professional Services

Feb 2023

Harvey Jones Bolsters Team

Bespoke kitchen manufacturer and installer, Harvey Jones, backed by Coniston in May 2022, has expanded their team as part of their continued growth and development plan.

Vince Gunn joined as CEO in March 2023. Vince has spent the past two decades in senior roles in the consumer sector including as CEO at Snug, CEO at sofa.com and Commercial Director at Farrow & Ball.

Vince’s arrival adds to a team which was bolstered by the addition of Suhail Rafiq as CFO in September 2022. Suhail has fifteen years of experience in CFO roles and joined from Abergavenny Fine Foods, where he was Interim CFO.