Maven strengthens investment team in the North East
Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active private equity houses, announced the appointment of Michael Vassallo as investment director and Michael Dickens as investment manager to its North East investment team.
The appointments of Michael Vassallo and Michael Dickens, who will be responsible for transacting new investments in the North East on behalf of Maven’s client funds, will strengthen an established, highly experienced Northern investment team, which has been successfully investing in high growth SMEs across the region for almost 20 years. These new appointments will strengthen Maven’s presence across the North East and enable Maven to work closely with SMEs and high growth businesses to help them achieve their growth plans.
Michael Vassallo joins from Newcastle-based FW Capital and brings more than 15 years’ experience of listed and private company analysis and fundraising to Maven’s experienced northern investment team in supporting new client funds. Since 2014 Michael has been a senior investment executive working on SME investment funds, where he has led on more than £10m of investments. Prior to this, he was an associate director at Brewin Dolphin Corporate Broking and Advisory where he covered listed equities across a variety of sectors as an analyst, identifying investment opportunities for fund managers and advising companies on IPOs and capital raisings.
Michael Dickens joins from Rivers Capital Partners in Newcastle bringing more than six years’ experience investing in SMEs. There he held the position of fund manager of the £11m North East Angel Fund, making investments on behalf of the £7.5m Micro Loan fund. During his career, Michael has been instrumental in sourcing and completing both debt and equity investments in businesses across a wide range of sectors and at all stages of the SME life cycle.
Supporting the team will be marketing associate Emma Neal, who joined Maven in 2017 from Rivers Capital Partners in Newcastle. Emma has worked in investor relations and account manager roles with Rivers Capital and sister business Finance Tree since 2014, where she has supported the investment team in helping SMEs raise finance and manage investment vehicles.
Michael Vassallo, investment director for Maven in the North East, said, “We are really excited to be strengthening the Maven brand across the North East, where Maven is already an established investor in SMEs and has a strong record of backing dynamic regional businesses. The firm’s strong record of backing innovative British businesses, and recent appointment to manage the SME focused Finance Durham fund, is an opportunity to work with some of the highest potential smaller companies in the region to deliver their growth aspirations.
As a team we bring an in-depth knowledge of the local SME sector, and a range of sector specialist knowledge, allied to the national resource of Maven’s UK business which is currently invested in over 50 high-growth SMEs.”
