Silverfleet loses IR head – Exclusive

Veteran investor relations professional Annette Wilson has left Silverfleet Capital, the mid-market European firm. Its current fund, which is 30 percent invested, closed on €850 million in June last year.

Wilson joined the firm’s London office in December 2013 to set up a dedicated investor relations function, having spent 14 years with European growth investor Palamon Capital Partners. An accountant by training, she joined Palamon at its inception in 1999, initially as chief financial officer, and went on to spearhead the firm’s investor relations and marketing functions.

Wilson has also worked closely with industry colleagues on various committees at the industry association BVCA, chairing the IR committee and sitting on the organisation’s main board.

During her tenure as head of investor relations at Silverfleet, the firm raised €850 million for its second fund, beating its €700 million target in under a year of fundraising. Credit Suisse Asset Management acted as advisor and placement agent.

At the end of last year Silverfleet’s managing partner Neil MacDougall told Private Equity International that incoming regulation in the form of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) had made the marketing process for the fund more complicated than for its predecessor.

“One tedious part was the premarketing. The new rules regarding what you needed to do in order to market a fund in each European country were far from clear,” he said.

The circumstances of the departure are as yet unclear. A spokesperson for Silverfleet confirmed Wilson’s departure as of the end of July, but declined to comment further. Wilson could not be reached for comment at press time.

Silverfleet positions itself as a buy-and-build specialist, investing in businesses with enterprise values of between €75 million and €250 million, headquartered in the UK and Ireland, the DACH region, France, Benelux and the Nordics. The four sectors on which the firm focuses are business and financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and retail, and leisure and consumer products.