Dan Booth: how Leonard Curtis can double in size again after Pollen Street deal

How one professional services business walked a five year path before taking on PE investment

Hello Rainmakers,

We thought we might slow down for August, but today we’re sharing the inside track on the investment at Leonard Curtis, the Manchester-based restructuring specialist and advisory business, which has sold a majority stake to Pollen Street Capital, the ambitious private equity investor, in a deal that values the firm at over £80m.

The management team under CEO Dan Booth, who joined the firm as a school leaver in 1995, will remain and he told me that he is ambitious to grow the business which has doubled in size since 2021 when family investment office Arete Capital Partners and Svella Plc invested £10m. For them the deal is an exit worth £40m, four times their £10m investment.

In a frank and highly revealing interview with Rainmakers, Booth talked me through the strategy of the business the relationship with funders Arete and Svella, and his clear passion for growing Leonard Curtis into something even bigger.

“We have our sights on building a business that is sustainable for many years to come and to represent something that we can all be proud to be a part of,” he said.

The facts we outlined this morning in a news story are that Pollen Street’s investment in a 60% stake in Leonard Curtis will accelerate growth across the platform through product expansion, technology and M&A, Booth said. Pollen Street, who were advised by Clearwater, have also been supported in the deal by Manchester-headquartered private credit investor TDC.

But Booth also told me that he actually first met the Pollen Street Capital team back in 2020 and worked towards getting Leonard Curtis fit for their backing with what he described as a private capital investor, rather than a private equity business that has backed impressive businesses like Shawbrook Bank, Mattioli Woods and the wealth management consolidator Kingswood.