Jonathan Bell

Jonathan Bell is Managing Partner for the North at LDC, the mid-market private equity house owned by Lloyds Banking Group. He is responsible for LDC's activity across the North of the UK, working with the teams in Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Scotland to identify management teams that would benefit from private equity investment. He sits on LDC's Investment Committee and was promoted from Head of the North West to Head of the North, extending his remit over the firm's Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Aberdeen offices as well as its Glasgow and Edinburgh presence.

An Economics and Finance graduate from the University of Manchester, Bell began his career at PwC, where he qualified as a chartered accountant (ACA). He has more than 20 years of corporate finance experience and joined LDC in 2006 from Deloitte, where he had been an assistant director for six years.

Over roughly two decades at LDC he has backed and supported some of the North's most notable growth businesses, including medical communications group Fishawack Health, workforce management software firm Mitrefinch, SRL Traffic Systems, cloud services provider Giacom and pipeline-inspection camera manufacturer Mini-Cam. He is known for leading buyouts and their subsequent exits — including the MBOs and successful exits of Giacom and Mini-Cam.

Alongside originating and leading deals, Bell serves on portfolio company boards as a non-executive director, a role he has held at businesses including MSQ Partners, HSL Compliance and Eque2 (and, previously, companies such as Shield Group and Mitrefinch), giving him hands-on involvement in the strategic development of LDC's investments.

• Invests as a mid-market private equity partner rather than an early-stage/angel investor: LDC's model is management buyouts, institutional buyouts, and development capital in established, profitable companies.
• Cheque sizes are substantial — £2m to £100m of equity, typically £10m–£50m initial investment with capacity for up to £100m of follow-on funding to support buy-and-build and international expansion.
• Looks for ambitious management teams with a clear growth plan; LDC positions itself around backing "management teams" and being "trusted with ambition," partnering typically over a multi-year (roughly 3–5 year) hold.
• Sector-agnostic mandate, but Bell's personal deal history clusters in software/TMT, healthcare and medical communications, industrials/manufacturing, and business & support services.
• Strong regional thesis: an explicit focus on Northern UK businesses, leveraging LDC's local offices and networks to source and support companies close to where its teams "live and work."
• Value creation via follow-on capital and M&A — e.g., providing £18.5m of follow-on funding to Fishawack Health to fund North American acquisitions, which helped triple annual revenues over a three-year partnership.