Aurelius boosts UK operations team

German-listed private equity company Aurelius has hired a new operations manager who will be placed at portfolio company Allied Healthcare, it said.

Ben Paice is the third hire for the UK operations team in the past year. Paice joined from AlixPartners where he was an associate director. Before that he worked at global consultancy firm BDO.

Aurelius acquired Allied Healthcare from the UK's Saga in December as a disposal of a non-core asset. Included in the acquisition were Allied Healthcare’s visiting care, primecare and homecare independent living business units. The business has more than 12,000 employees and recorded revenues of £282 million ($405 million; €360 million) in 2014.

Paice’s hire follows that of Simon Brott last June as senior operations manager. Brott now works at UK portfolio company Solidus Solutions, a carve-out of Smurfit Kappa solid board operations in the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway.

Gavin Duke joined the firm’s operations team in April last year from Aloe Private Equity, where he worked for six years. He is also a senior operations manager and has been deployed to portfolio company Evolve Polymers, which recycles mixed plastics.

In January, the firm also appointed Daniel Simon as an associate. Simon was formerly a manager in PwC’s financial restructuring team, part of its business recovery services practice. His restructuring experience includes healthcare, financial services and engineering sectors.

Aurelius made 10 investments last year bringing its total number of portfolio companies to 25, encompassing five carve-outs from UK corporates and including Allied Healthcare, Solidus Solutions and Colt Managed Cloud.

In December, the company announced that it had sold two hotel properties in Munich to a real estate focused-family office. The hotels were the last investments left in a five-hotel portfolio acquired in February 2011. One of the properties was divested in 2012, with another two sold in the last half of last year.

Tristan Nagler, managing director of Aurelius in the UK, told pfm's sister title Private Equity International previously that the firm was actively hiring for its London office that opened about two years ago.

“Going forward, the UK economy and the change of government gives us a favorable backdrop. Coming out of a recession does drive disposals,” Nagler said in July. Aurelius will consider acquisitions of difficult corporate situations including litigation, key customer risk, management issues and pension risk.