Bregal Freshstream has appointed Lodewijk de Graauw to the newly formed role of Head of Portfolio Operations, in which he will be responsible for working closely with the management teams of companies within Bregal Freshstream’s portfolio, helping them to develop and execute strategies in order to maximise their growth potential.
De Graauw joins the team following 14 years at global management consultancy Bain & Company, latterly as a Partner and Head of Bain’s EMEA turnaround practice.
During his time at Bain, he worked closely with management teams to help create value, mostly on multi-year transformation programs for companies across a variety of sectors, including for a number of private equity owned firms. Lodewijk was also a founding partner in Bain’s Perth office and was one of four founding employees in Bain’s capability centre in India.
Lodewijk’s experience of helping ambitious, high growth businesses achieve their growth potential will be central to his role at Bregal Freshstream where he will work alongside the management teams of Bregal Freshstream’s existing investments.
Bregal Freshstream is focused on mid-market investments and looks to invest in growth businesses across a wide variety of sectors, with a particular geographic focus on the UK and Benelux markets. Its strategy is to acquire equity stakes in the companies in which it invests, though it also has the capability to invest across the entire capital structure, including in debt and debt-like instruments, partnering with the owners and management teams of its portfolio companies.
De Graauw says: “I am excited to be joining Bregal Freshstream at this important stage in its development following a period of significant growth that has seen the business invest in a number of exciting, high growth firms. The ethos of working closely with management teams is one that fits with my experience and approach and I am tremendously excited about helping these firms to achieve their full potential.”
Patrick Smulders, Managing Partner at Bregal Freshstream, says: “We are delighted to welcome Lodewijk to the team as we continue to make excellent progress in driving growth across our existing portfolio. Lodewijk has first-rate credentials in helping management teams across a variety of sectors and I have no doubt that he will prove to be an invaluable addition to our team as we seek to build on the strong momentum we have generated since our launch a little over two years ago.
“We have enjoyed a very busy and productive 2017, enter 2018 in a fantastic position with a good pipeline of opportunities and remain on the lookout for further key hires who share our values of trust, integrity, empathy, humility and respect.”
