Independent, ambitious and committed

When we acquire a company the transition is seamless and employees are reassured about the future.

Longacre has a team of world class operators to assist our companies in the pursuit of their goals. The quality of our management teams is our greatest differentiator and we strive to be the best owners of the companies we work with.

Longacre operational team

Our team

Elliott Nicholson

Co-CEO

Elliott is a founding member of Longacre Group and responsible for its investments. He is on the board of Pioneer Safety Group, IDESo, Power Adhesives and Versiv. He has extensive investment experience completing a wide range of transactions in a variety of industries with a particular focus on industrials and business services.

Elliott’s earlier career was spent working as a member of H.I.G. Capital’s private equity team in London and the investment banking team at J.P. Morgan Cazenove advising UK industrial clients.

Elliott graduated from University College London with a degree in Economics.

Stani Schmidt-Chiari

Co-CEO

Stani is a founding member of Longacre Group and responsible for its investments. He is on the board of Dycem, Inuvi, Pura Diagnostics and Prowrap. Before Longacre Group, Stani was at H.I.G. Capital covering the UK and German-speaking countries for private equity investments.

Stani started his career at Lehman Brothers in leveraged finance, after which he worked at Apax Partners focusing on financial and business services companies.

Stani graduated from University College London with a degree in East European Studies and Economics and holds an MBA from INSEAD. He is a native German speaker, fluent in English and French and speaks conversational Russian.

Ashley Brown

Group CFO

Ashley joined Longacre Group in October 2023 as Group Chief Financial Officer, responsible for financial matters across the Group. Ashley has over 20 years senior financial experience, spanning a range of sectors including Manufacturing, Engineering, Hospitality, Technology, Business Services and Construction, covering the UK and International Markets. Over the last 10 years Ashley has focused his expertise on working as a CFO in a number of Private Equity backed businesses leading turnaround situations, refinancing and M&A. Ashley holds an MBA from Oxford Brookes University and is a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant.

James Moreton

Managing Director

James is part of the Longacre investment team and a board member or observer of Inuvi, Polyblend and Versiv. He is particularly focused on working across the Longacre Group of companies to assist them with add-on acquisitions.

Before joining Longacre, James was a Director at Pitt Capital Partners the investment arm of Washington H. Soul Pattinson & Co Ltd (SOL.ASX), an Australian diversified investment house. In this role, James led several private market investment strategies with a focus on financial and business services.

James’s earlier career involved working in the financial institution’s investment banking division of J.P. Morgan in Sydney and at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

James holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Nottingham.

Catherine Spyropoulos

Director

Catherine is part of the Longacre investment team and a board member of Power Adhesives.

Before joining Longacre Group, Catherine was in the Principal Investments team at Investec Bank plc. She was involved in executing and managing numerous equity investments for the bank’s proprietary portfolio which spanned multiple sectors.

Catherine holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Beatrice Blomberg

Business Executive

Bee is a Business Executive at Longacre and is responsible for operational aspects of the business.

Brendan Colgan

Operating Partner, Technical Manufacturing and Chemicals

Brendan is an accountant by training and a Harvard AMP graduate. He has spent his career in international engineering and industrial companies most recently as CEO for Rosti Group, a leading technical plastics contract manufacturer. Prior to this, Brendan held the roles of Divisional Managing Director of IMI Precision Engineering and Group CEO of ESAB.

Brendan has extensive experience in a diverse range of both mature and developing markets, growing sales and improving margins through product development, sales effectiveness and operational efficiency.

Brian Quarendon

Operating Partner, Technical Manufacturing

Brian is an engineer by background with a long history in the sector. He started his engineering career with RACAL and then moved on to hold MD positions in BAe, GEC and Marconi where, under his leadership and strategic management, all companies grew substantially and became market leaders. He then supported the delisting of the Industrial Acoustic Company from the NASDAQ and took on the CEO role growing turnover from $25m to £300m with operations across Australasia, Europe and the USA, before selling the company for its private equity owners.

Brian has also successfully supported the acquisition or sale of companies for both Private Equity and Private Owners as a Chairman or strategic adviser. He has experience in a wide range of sectors including defence, energy, industrial, construction and materials handling.

Joe Barry

Operating Partner, Healthcare Products and Chemicals

After an early career working in the USA and Europe for Dow Chemical and General Electric, Joe became Managing Director of Bespak and Nolato both of whom are leading medical device manufacturers. Joe joined Longacre in 2021 as CEO of Prowrap Group and lead the business to significant growth in both the haircare and catering market sectors. Joe is currently the CEO of Dycem and Chairman of Prowrap.

Jonathan Benton

Opearting Partner, Healthcare Services

Jonathan leads Healthcare Services for the Longacre Group. He joined the group through Longacre Group’s investment into Medical Screening Solutions (MSS) which he founded. He helped Longacre Group expand its Healthcare services offerings through extremely fast organic growth and several strategic acquisitions.

He is an entrepreneurial, strategic, and analytical business leader with over 25 years of experience in growing and running successful companies in the Health Services market. With strong commercial acumen and attention to detail, he is a results-orientated business leader.

Previously Jonathan founded Medicals Direct Group (MDG) where he led the business to become the largest provider of medical screening services to both UK and Irish Life Assurance companies. In 2012, he managed the sale of MDG to Capita, where he was appointed Managing Director of Tascor Medical Services as well as Capita’s Clinic business, while remaining Managing Director of MDG. Here, he was responsible for multi-site operations with over 400 employees across three business units within Capita’s Health and Wellbeing division.

Philip Hatton

Operating Partner, IT Services and Business Services

Phil is an accomplished Operational Leader. He has held leadership positions in several Investment-backed businesses and has completed several M&A transactions. He has in-depth experience across many sectors – technology, cyber security, financial services, healthcare and business services.

Phil is an expert in applying technology to achieve revenue growth and cost optimisation, as well as using CRM tools to improve customer service. His expertise is founded on over a decade of experience in Business and Project Turnarounds, after a successful track record at Barclays Bank, Deloitte and KPMG. Phil holds an MBA and a BA(Hons) in Business and Finance.

Stewart Cantley

Operating Partner, Business Services

Stewart led the buy-in for Dycem enabling the existing owner-manager to retire. Under his leadership, the business has doubled in size and profits. Stewart started his career with a large US multi-national Cummins engine company, following which he spent the last 25 years in the B2B service sector and manufacturing businesses including equipment rental, washroom services, textile rental, recruitment and medical devices. He led several highly successful private equity-backed businesses including Warner Howard (sold to PHS) and Laundrycraft (sold to Berendsen).

Stewart’s expertise lies in management processes and structure together with increasing shareholder value through the development of international and national sales operations.