YFM Equity Partners expands investment team in the North

YFM Equity Partners is delighted to welcome two new senior appointments to its Northern investment team.  Dan Freed has joined the Manchester office and Mike Clarke has joined the Leeds office.

Dan Freed has joined as a Partner in Manchester to expand YFM’s reach and capacity in the North West.  Dan spent the last five years in Strategy and Corporate Development at Bibby Line Group, prior to which he worked at Dow Schofield Watts in their Corporate Finance practice.  Dan’s initial focus will be new deal origination and execution, working alongside Andy Thomas, with a view to further developing YFM’s portfolio of growth businesses in the North West, which currently include Matillion and 4Net.

Mike Clarke has joined as an Investment Director in YFM’s Leeds office and will focus on making new investments in Yorkshire and the North East.  Prior to YFM, Mike was a Corporate Finance Director at BDO.  He also has experience of SME investing through a spell at Business Growth Fund.  Mike will be working alongside Ian Waterfield, Nigel Owens and Steve Harrison to continue YFM’s track record of successful investments in the region, including Go Outdoors, President Engineering, Selima and Checkmate Fire.

Ian Waterfield commented: “We continue to see strong demand from investors to invest in SMEs, and from entrepreneurs and ambitious management teams to raise equity capital for their growing businesses.  Furthermore, our view is that recent economic and political uncertainty provides opportunity for long term investors like YFM.  The addition of Dan and Mike to our team provides additional new investment capacity in the North to address the demand and in so doing deliver our own growth aspirations.”