HIG Capital and their European Affiliate

H.I.G. Capital LLC is a private-equity company founded in 1993 and based in Miami, USA. Over the past year H.I.G. have acquired a series of companies including; Synseal, the Losberger Group and Aircom International - the world’s largest independent provider of optimisation services. HIG Europe is the European affiliate of H.I.G. Capital and has offices in France, Germany and the UK. The European company is lead by 2 Managing Partners and 6 Managing Directors including Paul Canning and Matthias Allgaier who work within the UK.

Paul Canning has been with the company for the past 4 years. In the past Canning has worked within the Royal Bank of Scotland and KPMG in Glasgow and Edinburgh, working closely with small cap-companies. Matthias Allgaier has been working within the Private Equity Industry since 1994 and prior to his position at H.I.G. Capital he has held senior positions in the Internet Capital Group and Apax Partners.

HIG's typical portfolio companies fall into three categories; Management led buyouts, investments in distressed companies and growth development for start up companies. The European firm has approximately 40 investment professionals in its three offices and in 2007 H.I.G. Europe received the “Fund of the Year” award from the EVCA.

The firm has a proven strategy built around a long standing focus on Medium and small sized businesses. The firm has an appreciation of the unique opportunities and challenges these businesses present and has a large group of trained employees with a value-added “can-do” attitude and unique skills and capabilities.

H.I.G. Capital currently has more than 6 billion GBP of equity capital under management and they plan to make further announcements regarding transactions in the next few months.