NEIL McGill, who used to head accountancy firm BDO’s mergers and acquisitions team in Scotland, has joined the Cairngorm Capital private equity business and will lead its hunt for more deals in the country.
Mr McGill has been appointed investment director at Cairngorm Capital, whose portfolio includes the Livington-based Stevenswood window making and trade counters business.
Describing Mr McGill as an M&A heavyweight, Cairngorm said he would bring experience and calibre as the firm looks to deploy the £180 million capital it has available for investment.
Mr McGill said he was looking forward to working with portfolio companies and to sourcing new investments for Cairngorm, which is based in London.
He has been appointed a director of Stevenswood.
Educated at Glasgow Academy and Durham University, Mr McGill has gained over 16 years’ experience in M&A markets including seven spent at BDO in Scotland.
The deals he advised on at BDO included the sale of the Edinburgh Gin business to Ian Macleod Distillers and the management buyout of Premier Hytemp from Murray International Holdings, which was backed by Dunedin Capital Partners.
Before joining BDO he was a director and shareholder in the Tiger Advisers business and spent six years at ABN Amro investment bank in London.
He qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young.
Cairngorm said it invests in successful mid-market UK companies in the manufacturing, distribution and services industries, with operating profits in the £2 million to £20m range. It looks for firms that have shown they can handle economic volatility.
The firm has made six investments. Its portfolio also includes the Customade window manufacturing group.
In March the firm supported Stevenswood’s acquisition of the Truemans Holdings trade counters business, which increased its presence in the north and midlands of England.
Cairngorm was founded in 2014 by Andrew Steel who moved into private equity with America’s H.I.G. Capital after working in the consulting and building materials industries.
Last month Cairngorm completed raising its second fund after securing £107.5m commitments from investors.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here