James Agnew

James Douglas Agnew is a Partner at Harwood Private Equity, the UK lower mid-market private equity arm within the Harwood Capital Management group. Harwood’s private equity funds invest in established small and medium-sized companies, with a long-running emphasis on buyouts, expansion capital, consolidation opportunities, and public-to-private transactions.

Agnew joined the Harwood Private Equity team in 2005. His firm biography states that he has more than 30 years of financial services experience and previously spent nine years in corporate finance at Credit Suisse First Boston before joining HPE. At Harwood, he leads transactions and serves as a non-executive director of several portfolio companies.

He holds a degree in accounting and finance from the University of Auckland. Companies House lists him as an active LLP member of Harwood Private Equity LLP, appointed on 21 February 2022, with a London correspondence address at 6 Stratton Street, Mayfair.

• Harwood Private Equity invests in established small and medium-sized businesses, mainly in the UK lower mid-market, and seeks to back companies with strong potential and high-quality operational management.
• The firm’s stated target company profile includes businesses with “high-quality operational management, maintainable earnings, decent market share, latent value and significant potential for growth.”
• HPE targets companies with enterprise value between £15 million and £75 million.
• The firm leads transactions using a low-leverage strategy and focuses on buyouts, expansion capital, buy-and-build opportunities, and public-to-private deals.
• HPE has a specialist public-to-private practice, reporting 26 small-cap PTP transactions since 1999.
• Harwood expects active ownership: it says it always joins portfolio company boards, supports management with finance and expertise, and works on financial controls, M&A, growth strategy, new contract wins, geographic expansion, and partner introductions.
• The firm identifies an exit strategy before investing and has used trade sales, IPOs, and secondary private equity sales.