Peter Wood

Peter began his career as a business analyst at Accenture before moving into private-equity strategy consulting at PwC, where he advised mid-market buyout firms — including Apax Partners, Doughty Hanson and Bridgepoint — on investment strategy, commercial due diligence and transaction advisory. He holds a degree in Management Sciences from Warwick Business School.

From roughly 2008 to 2018 he was an Investment Director at Next Wave Partners, a UK transformation/growth investor, where he completed five platform acquisitions and nine bolt-ons alongside follow-on rounds, refinancings and exits. He sat on the board of The Delivery Group, which he helped grow to over £200m turnover and ~£10m EBITDA, and held board-investor roles at six other portfolio companies.

In 2018 he joined AURELIUS (the German-headquartered mid-market investor) as a Principal in its London office, sourcing and executing UK private and listed-company deals, and was promoted to UK Managing Director in 2022. He led several carve-outs but is best known for leading AURELIUS's £207m acquisition of The Body Shop in late 2023 — a deal that became controversial when the retailer fell into administration roughly three months after completion in early 2024, amid questions over the acquired business's finances. Wood left AURELIUS in February 2024 following the administration.

In January 2025 he launched Splitstone Capital LLP in London with Steven Clark (founder of multi-asset manager Omni Advisory), positioning the firm as a lower-mid-market corporate carve-out specialist with around £100m of capital available to deploy. He serves as Founder & Managing Partner and now uses the surname Foxwood. Splitstone's marketing states its team has led 14+ carve-out transactions as a principal investor and completed 35+ private-equity deals overall.

• Buys non-core divisions carved out of larger corporates in the UK and Ireland — explicitly a control investor (whole companies and significant majorities), not a minority/seed backer.
• Targets businesses with £20m–£100m+ turnover (up to ~£500m), typically lower-margin (sub-15% EBITDA) operations that are complex to separate or operationally turn around.
• Focus sectors: industrials (manufacturing, packaging, chemicals) and business services (industrial services, recycling, distribution, logistics); other sectors considered opportunistically.
• Equity cheques up to roughly £20m–£50m, on deals up to ~£400m enterprise value; typical hold period of 3–7 years.
• Says yes to complexity — separation challenges, ESG/operational transitions, incomplete management teams, complicated customer/supplier relationships — that deter buyers who have moved up-market.
• In his own words: *"Splitstone was created to offer corporate vendors of non-core divisions a professional solution in the lower mid-market. With other investors having moved up in deal size, there are few options for corporates seeking a new home for their non-core divisions in our target segment."*