About Crathwick
We buy British businesses and keep them.
Crathwick Capital acquires established United Kingdom businesses, invests in them, and keeps them. We are not a fund with a disposal date, and we are not a competitor buying a rival to absorb it.
The succession gap
A generation of owners is approaching retirement without an obvious successor.
A substantial share of British small and mid-sized companies is owned by people who founded or bought them decades ago. Many are profitable, well run and central to the towns they operate in. Their owners are now in their sixties, and the question of who takes the business on has no settled answer.
Children have other careers. Managers are capable but rarely have the capital to buy. Trade buyers are interested in the customer list rather than the company. Private equity requires a story about a sale in five years, which is not what most owners are looking for.
The result is that good businesses are sold to whoever happens to be available, or wound down. Crathwick exists to be a deliberate alternative to both outcomes.
We provide the capital, so there is no financing condition to unwind late in a process. We hold the businesses we buy on our own balance sheet, so there is no fund life and no requirement to sell. And we work inside them afterwards, because ownership without operating involvement is only paperwork.
That combination changes what we optimise for. A buyer who must exit optimises for the next valuation event. An owner who intends to hold optimises for the business still being strong in twenty years: systems that work, managers who can run it, customers who stay, and enough investment to keep earning the reputation it already has.
Businesses we acquire keep their name, their premises and their people. Reporting improves, technology improves and capital becomes available. The company remains itself.
The model
An investment company, a holding company and an operator in one.
We buy businesses to own them, not to sell them on.
What this means for an owner
Fewer moving parts, and a decision you can explain to your staff.
One counterparty
You deal with the people who will own the business. There is no investment committee behind them and no third party whose approval arrives late.
A price that holds
We show the arithmetic behind our proposal and intend to complete on it. We do not re-price the deal because a modest issue surfaced during diligence.
A future you can describe
The business keeps its name and its team. That is a straightforward thing to tell employees, customers and suppliers on the day it is announced.
The alternatives
Three kinds of buyer, and what each one is for.
| Aspect | Private equity | Trade buyer | Crathwick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holding horizon | Three to seven years, then a sale or refinancing. | Indefinite, but as part of the acquirer. | Permanent. No fund life and no exit requirement. |
| What happens to the team | Reviewed against a cost plan set at acquisition. | Overlapping roles are usually consolidated. | The team stays; we invest in training and capacity. |
| What happens to the brand | Often retained, sometimes repositioned before a sale. | Frequently absorbed into the buyer's brand. | Kept. The name is part of what we bought. |
| Who runs it afterwards | An installed chief executive with a value-creation plan. | The acquirer's divisional management. | Local management, supported rather than replaced. |
Our Team
