LDC grows West Midlands team with senior hire

Published by

Peter Davison

LDC, the UK’s leading mid-market private equity firm, has strengthened its West Midlands team with the appointment of Investment Director Richard Godwin.

With 20 years’ experience in corporate finance, Richard (left) has extensive knowledge of how private equity can help management teams to realise a range of different growth plans. He has advised businesses across a number of sectors including industrials, healthcare, retail, and consumer.

Richard joins LDC from Create Investments, an investment business he founded to support the growth of SMEs across the UK. Prior to this, Richard spent 13 years as a Director at global investment bank Rothschild & Co, where he acted as lead adviser and provided strategic advice on more than 40 transactions.

Based in Birmingham, Richard will support the firm’s commitment to invest in 100 medium-sized businesses nationally over the next five years.

This appointment follows a busy year for the team, during which LDC invested in Leicestershire-based food manufacturer Bramble to support the management team’s organic and acquisitive growth strategy.

The team also successfully exited Leamington Spa-based Solid Solutions, a leading reseller of 3D design software, to TriMech. This followed a two-year partnership that enabled the team to complete two complementary acquisitions and increase revenues by more than 35 per cent.

LDC continues to work closely with the management teams of its broad portfolio of businesses. Earlier this year, the private equity firm supported technical component manufacturer Cardel to acquire Hannover-based VTT a market leading supplier of components within the identification market. Its portfolio also includes specialist engineering business ELE, pensions support services provider Ross Trustees and Worcester-headquartered Kingswood, a supplier of mobility support products.

Richard Godwin, Investment Director at LDC, said: “LDC’s depth of experience across multiple sectors, their ability to add value to their portfolio companies, and reputation for successfully supporting the region’s standout business growth stories, is unmatched in the UK. I’m looking forward to work with Chris and the LDC team to help more business leaders to realise their growth ambitions.”

This year LDC has also increased its support for worthwhile local causes. Through its annual charity quiz, the team recently raised over £18,500 for The Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

In partnership with The Prince’s Trust, LDC is also supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs based in the West Midlands – such as Birmingham-based Sanaa gift store. In July, LDC announced it had more than doubled its nationwide commitment to The Prince’s Trust to support 10,000 young people to start, sustain and grow their business.

LDC’s West Midlands team collected three awards at Insider’s Midlands Dealmakers Awards 2022. The team was awarded International Deal of the Year for the exit of Solid Solutions to US-based TriMech, Mid-Market Deal of the Year for its investment in Kingswood, and Deal of the Year for the exit of Forest Holidays to Sykes Holiday Cottages.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.