Team

We have investment experience across all business-to-business sectors and have transacted in multiple geographies. We are partners to our management teams and work closely with vendors to find the right solution for any situation.

Please call or email us to discuss a business opportunity.

Elliott Nicholson

Managing Director
elliott.nicholson@longacre.com
+44 (0) 782 463 5597

Elliott is a founding member of Longacre Group and responsible for its investments. Before Longacre, he was a member of H.I.G. Capital’s private equity team in London. Elliott has extensive investment experience completing a wide range of transactions in a variety of industries with a particular focus on industrials and business services.
Prior to H.I.G., Elliott was part of the investment banking team at J.P. Morgan Cazenove advising UK industrial clients.
Elliott graduated from University College London with a degree in Economics.

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Stani Schmidt-Chiari

Managing Director
stani.schmidt@longacre.com
+44 (0) 77 133 151 94

Stani is a founding member of Longacre Group and responsible for its investments. He is on the board of Dycem, Taylor Hopkinson, MSS, 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. Prior to that he worked at Apax Partners focusing on financial and business services companies. Stani started his career at Lehman Brothers in leveraged finance.

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, is fluent in English and French and speaks conversational Russian.

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James Moreton

Director
james.moreton@longacre.com
+44 (0) 79 586 333 90

Prior to 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 a number of private market investment strategies with a focus on financial and business services. Before joining Pitt Capital Partners, James worked in the financial institutions 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.

David Botha

Associate Director
david.botha@longacre.com
+44 (0) 770 628 4349

Prior to joining Longacre, David was in the UK Investment Banking team at Bank of America in London. He worked on M&A, Equity and Leverage Finance transactions across multiple sectors including industrials, financial services and mining. David started his career at PWC within the Corporate Finance and Due Diligence teams, across industrials and healthcare services.

David holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Stellenbosch University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant

Catherine Spyropoulos

Associate Director
catherine.spyropoulos@longacre.com
+44 (0) 75 184 060 24

Prior to 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 and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Lisa Schnepp

Business Executive
lisa.schnepp@longacre.com

Lisa is a Business Executive at Longacre and is responsible for Operational aspects. Prior to Longacre she was an Operations Consultant at Excluserv Ltd., a Chief of Staff at NobleCSS, a Cybersecurity Start-up, as well as varied other operational roles at a Service-Design Agency and Berlin Start-ups. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Applied Sciences Arnhem and Nijmegen.

Operating Partners

We work with outstanding industry leaders and have a deep bench of operational expertise through our Operating Partners and broader management network. We are keen to speak with high quality management candidates.

Stewart Cantley

Operating Partner

Stewart led the buy-in for Dycem allowing the existing owner manager to retire. Under his leadership the business has doubled in size and profits. Stewart started his career with large US multi-national Cummins engine company, following which he spent the last 25 years with B2B service sector and manufacturing businesses (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).

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

Brian Quarendon

Operating Partner

Brian is an Engineer by background with a long history in the sector starting his career with RACAL and Marconi before he became CEO of Industrial Acoustics Company a £400m turnover manufacturing business with operations across the USA and Europe. He has experience in a wide range of sectors including: Oil and Gas, Defence, Energy, Construction and Materials Handling.

Jonathan Benton

Operating Partner

Jonathan led the sale of Medical Screening Solutions (MSS) and Pura Diagnostics into the Longacre Group and is now CEO of Longacre Medical Services. He is an entrepreneurial, strategic, and analytical business leader with over 25 years’ experience of growing and running successful companies in the Health Services market. With strong commercial acumen and an 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 manged the sale of MDG to Capita, where he was appointed Managing Director of Tascor Medical Services as well as Capita’s Clinic business, whilst remaining Managing Director of MDG; becoming responsible for multi-site operations with over 400 employees across 3 business units within Capita’s Health and Wellbeing division.
 

Brendan Colgan

Operating Partner

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. He 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.