Alongside his professional career, Charlie is also a long-standing trustee of two charities, the Stone Family Foundation and Impetus, both of which have a focus on helping disadvantaged young people in the UK.

Bridges Inclusive Growth is a private equity strategy dedicated to investing in growing, cash-generative businesses delivering positive, measurable social outcomes for vulnerable groups in the UK. Current investments include New Reflexions, which provides care, therapy and education for disadvantaged young people, and Alina Homecare, which provides high-quality homecare for the elderly.

Emma Thorne, Partner and Co-head of Inclusive Growth, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome Charlie into the team. We have been looking to recruit an experienced private equity investor who is also deeply committed to our mission to achieve better outcomes for vulnerable people in the UK. Charlie fits the bill perfectly, and he is going to be a real asset to the team in the coming months and years.”

Charlie Edwards, Partner and Co-head of Inclusive Growth, said: “I have always believed that private equity investment is a powerful way to deliver positive social outcomes as well as attractive financial returns. So the opportunity to join a pioneering impact investment platform like Bridges – and its clearly differentiated Inclusive Growth strategy in particular – was very compelling. I’m looking forward to working with our existing portfolio, and identifying future opportunities to invest in highly impactful UK businesses across a range of sectors.”

Alina is a portfolio company of Bridges’ Inclusive Growth, part of Bridges’ private equity strategy. This strategic appointment comes as Alina continues to expand its footprint and enhance its service delivery across the health and social care sector.

David Hill, Chair of Alina Homecare, said:
“I’m delighted to be joining Alina at such an important moment in the company’s development. The team’s unwavering commitment to delivering quality of care and sustainable growth is inspiring, and I look forward to working closely with James and the Board to further the ‘Alina Difference’ and address the increasing need for high-quality care at home.”

James Deeley, CEO of Alina Homecare, said:
“We are delighted to welcome David to the team during this exciting phase of our journey. His deep knowledge of multi-site consumer-focused businesses and his track record of delivering impact in fast-paced environments will be invaluable as we continue to scale our operations and provide exceptional care to our clients.”

Emma Thorne, Partner & Head of Inclusive Growth at Bridges, added:
“Alina Homecare plays an essential role in enabling older adults across the UK to live independently at home, with a strong focus on quality of care that is rooted in exceptional staff training and engagement. David’s experience of working with private equity-backed growth companies will be hugely additive to Alina in this next phase of its development, and we look forward to working with him, James and the Alina team.”

Bridges and Alina Homecare would also like to express their sincere thanks to Alina co-founder Fergus Kee, who is stepping down as Chair after playing a central role in Alina’s growth and development over the last twelve years.

Bridges first invested in Alina in 2014, via an earlier private equity fund. This new investment – which follows an advisor-led competitive sale process – comes via its dedicated Inclusive Growth private equity strategy, which focuses on growth businesses that are delivering positive outcomes for vulnerable people in the UK.

Between 2024 and 2040, the UK’s elderly population is set to increase by about 2% per annum; by 2040, there will be 1m more people aged 80-85 than there are today. Coupled with the rise in chronic health conditions and increasing pressures on the primary care system, this creates an ever-growing need for high-quality care in the home that allows older people to continue living independently.

Alina has become a market leader in this sector, delivering 1.1m hours of care to over 1,300 people across the South of England last year. It has a strong focus on quality provision: 100% of its assessed branches are rated Good or Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, and it enjoys 99% service user satisfaction. The key enabler of this is its highly engaged and motivated workforce. Alina employs 100% of its carers and has a strong employee value proposition, particularly in terms of training, progression and pay. As a result, it has employee satisfaction of 98% and an Indeed rating of 4.2, both well ahead of the industry average. This helps it to recruit and retain high-quality carers, and support them to deliver the best possible care for service users.

Bridges is backing Alina’s existing management team, led by CEO James Deeley, who are re-investing alongside Bridges and will continue to lead the business. Emma Thorne, Partner and Head of Inclusive Growth at Bridges, and Tom Street, Investment Director for Inclusive Growth, will join the Alina board. With support from Bridges’ specialist impact value creation team, they will work closely with the business to support organic growth, further build out the senior team, and deepen its focus on quality outcomes for vulnerable older people.

Emma Thorne, Partner and Head of Bridges Inclusive Growth, said:

“Alina’s focus on providing quality employment for carers – enabling better care outcomes for vulnerable people – makes it a great fit for our Inclusive Growth strategy. As our elderly population grows, the need for this kind of high-quality care in the home is increasing steadily. We think Alina is perfectly placed to help address this unmet need in the coming years.”

James Deeley, CEO of Alina Homecare, said:

“Bridges have been a great partner for Alina over the years, and we are delighted to be partnering with the Inclusive Growth team for the next phase of our growth journey. It will allow us to maintain our emphasis on quality of care and quality of employment – which in turn help us to attract new clients and support the continued commercial growth of the business. We look forward to achieving further growth and impact in the coming years.”

The sell-side was advised by KPMG and Pinsent Masons; Bridges Inclusive Growth was advised by Grant Thornton, Addleshaw Goddard and Deloitte (tax structuring).  Due diligence providers included LEK (Commercial) BDO (financial), Global Counsel (Policy) and Palladium (digital).

Tom joins Bridges from Agathos, where he invested in UK SMEs operating across the education, healthcare and business service sectors. He began his career at DC Advisory, advising UK SMEs.

Emma Thorne, Head of Bridges Inclusive Growth, said:
“We’re delighted to welcome Tom to Bridges. He has a strong track record of helping businesses with impact at their core to achieve sustainable, fast-paced growth. We’re looking forward to drawing on this experience – and his strong sector knowledge – as we look to build out our Inclusive Growth strategy and achieve better outcomes in areas like physical health, mental health and economic inclusion.”

Tom Street, Investment Director for Bridges Inclusive Growth, said:
“I’ve always been passionate about working closely with exceptional founders and management teams to build businesses that drive positive change. Bridges is a true pioneer in impact investing, and the Inclusive Growth Fund is leaning into areas of the UK economy that are underserved by private capital. I’m excited about the opportunity to work with businesses making a positive impact, helping them navigate the challenges of rapid growth so they can improve the lives of more vulnerable people across the UK.”

The sale, to M Group Services, delivers a money multiple return of 3.4x and an IRR of 40% on Evergreen’s original investment.

AgilityEco is a home decarbonisation delivery platform with a strong social and environmental purpose. It provides whole-of-house energy efficiency solutions to some of the most vulnerable low-income households in the UK, offering independent advice, nationwide installation capabilities, reliable delivery and quality outcomes. To achieve this, AgilityEco partners with energy companies, local authorities, social housing providers, private social enterprises, utility companies and a broad network of dedicated installers.

Bridges Evergreen is the UK’s first long-term, impact-focussed equity fund and invested in AgilityEco in 2019. Since then, AgilityEco’s revenues have grown in lockstep with its social and environmental impact outcomes. Turnover has increased more than threefold to well over £100m and the number of employees has doubled.

AgilityEco worked with over 36,000 households in 2022/23, delivering energy efficiency measures that will save over £2,600 for each home on their lifetime energy bills. Those measures will also save over 113,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Evergreen has worked closely with the Board and the wider management team to embed impact best practice within the business, which has been recognised in the form of numerous industry awards and the business’ achievement of B Corp status.  Evergreen also worked with the Board to design and implement an employee share ownership scheme which means that around two-thirds of the company’s employees are also shareholders and have shared in the financial success of this sale transaction.

In 2021, Evergreen recruited Sharon Johnson to lead AgilityEco as CEO. The business now has an experienced, ambitious and highly regarded management team who are ideally placed to deliver on AgilityEco’s enormous future growth potential.

Tom Biddle, Partner at Bridges and Head of Bridges Evergreen, said:

“AgilityEco is exactly the type of business that Evergreen wants to partner with. It exists to tackle two of the greatest challenges facing the UK today: decarbonising our housing stock and lifting people out of fuel poverty. It is a fantastic example of the Just Transition in action.

“AgilityEco has also been a blueprint for Evergreen’s strategy of providing patient capital to support growing, highly impactful businesses to scale their outcomes and deliver attractive commercial returns. This sale transaction is a significant milestone for Evergreen and our investors. We are very proud to have been shareholders in the business and to have supported Sharon, Shueb, Anthony and the team to deliver such phenomenal growth.

“We wish the business, its team and its new owner every success in the future.”

Sharon Johnson, CEO of AgilityEco, said:

“We would like to thank Tom, Luke and the Bridges Evergreen team for their role in the development of AgilityEco into the diversified, national energy efficiency services platform that it is today. Our mission is to play a major role in eliminating fuel poverty and to help towards net zero. Evergreen’s investment has been key to accelerating our progress towards achieving that.

Evergreen has provided strategic support and investment, as well as bringing invaluable experience of scaling businesses which are taking institutional capital for the first time and supporting successful founder transitions. The combination of that support, together with Bridges’ market-leading impact expertise, has really facilitated AgilityEco’s growth and success.”

The Bridges Evergreen team consisted of Tom Biddle, Luke Edwards, Olivia Prentice and James Hicks.

The shareholders’ corporate finance advisors on the transaction were Arrowpoint Advisory. CMS acted as legal advisors and Baringa and KPMG provided vendor due diligence services. Management was advised by Liberty and CMS.

We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Henry Jones as Partner & Head of Value Creation, to further strengthen our efforts to optimise the commercial and impact performance of our portfolio companies.

Henry will work closely with our investment professionals, impact specialists and portfolio management teams to help these businesses improve revenue and margins, hone their proposition, strengthen their senior teams, and achieve greater impact.

Henry is an experienced business builder, with a strong track record of driving growth in international businesses, building high-performing teams and executing operational improvements.

His previous roles include leading the US West Coast operation and global tech practice at Axiom, a tech-enabled legal services company, during a three-year period when the business tripled in size.  He also headed up EMEA and International Growth at Aconex, an Australian construction tech business, where he led the acquisition and integration of its biggest European competitor, ahead of Aconex’s $1.1bn sale to Oracle.

He was most recently the CEO of Togetherall, an online mental health support community, where he led a rebuild of the leadership team and technology platform, and a full rebrand, before overseeing a launch in the US and a successful growth capital raise.

Philip Newborough, co-CEO of Bridges Fund Management, said:

“For the last two decades, Bridges has been helping impactful businesses to maximise their growth and impact potential. Henry’s appointment will allow us to build on this experience and pull together our existing value creation initiatives – while also drawing on his impressive track record as a business leader and operator. We believe this combination will strengthen our credentials as the investment partner of choice for businesses that are helping to solve the world’s biggest challenges over the next decade.”

Henry Jones, Partner and Head of Value Creation said:

“Having run a number of different businesses, and having been through the capital-raising experience – most recently in a business with social impact at its core – I’m excited to be able to use what I’ve learned to support others on a similar journey. I’ve always been passionate about growing businesses and building great teams – and I understand the value of having an aligned investor on the other side of the table. Bridges has been a specialist and a market-leader in this space for many years; impact is in its DNA. We are moving into a new era where all businesses will have to be focused on their impact and sustainability, and Bridges has a fantastic opportunity to be in the vanguard of this movement. I feel privileged to be part of that, and to work with growth businesses that are helping to build a better future for people and the planet.”

Henry will work closely with Bridges’ Impact team on value creation initiatives that will enhance commercial and impact performance.

Olivia Prentice, Partner & Head of Impact, said:

“Henry’s skillset will perfectly complement Bridges’ market-leading impact management expertise, as well as the extensive experience of our investment teams in building high-growth, high-impact companies. Our specialist impact team works closely with every company we back to provide expertise on how to measure and improve social and environmental performance, in ways that create value for shareholders and the company’s broader stakeholders. Henry will help us enhance this integrated value creation offering with his strengths in strategy development, technology and team-building.”

Our co-CEOs (and co-founders) were this year’s selection for the private equity ‘Hall of Fame’ – in recognition of the work they (and Bridges more broadly) have done in building the market for sustainable and impact-driven investing.

Bridges was an idea born out of the private equity industry, and some of the UK’s leading firms played an instrumental supporting role in our early years.
In return, Bridges has always tried to support the growth of this segment, both by sharing what we’ve learned along the way for the benefit of others, and by playing an active role in groups like the BVCA, PRI and B Corp UK.

In recent years, we have also hosted and facilitated the Impact Management Project, an initiative designed to help all investors agree standard norms and frameworks for measuring and reporting on their impact.

So Michele and Phil (on behalf of the whole team) are hugely grateful to receive this recognition from their peers. Many thanks to Real Deals and all those who supported the nomination!

This year’s Private Equity Awards, brought by Real Deals Media and hosted by Scottish impressionist and comedian Rory Bremner, saw an impressive 38 awards handed out to various deserving firms and professionals from across the industry.

Bridges was also shortlisted in the GP category for ESG – recognising our continued commitment to best practice in environmental, social and corporate governance.

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Eva previously spent 11 years at 3i, latterly as a Director in the UK private equity team. More recently she was Chief Operating Officer and Company Secretary of Level 20, a not-for-profit organisation that champions gender diversity in the private equity industry. She has extensive experience as a Non-Executive Director: she currently holds board positions with Level 20 and The Place, the UK’s premier contemporary dance centre, while her previous board positions include Mayborn, owner of the global baby brand tommee tippee®.

Eva commented: “I’m delighted to be joining the Bridges Evergreen team. Having spent more than a decade in UK private equity, it was clear to me that Evergreen has developed a completely differentiated proposition that will be very attractive to impact-driven management teams looking for a supportive, values-aligned partner. I think that creates a huge opportunity for Evergreen, and I’m excited by the opportunity to be a part of that – while helping some of these great businesses to scale faster and have even more impact.

Tom Biddle, Head of Evergreen, added: “We’re very excited to be welcoming Eva to the Bridges Evergreen team. Evergreen is already delivering both powerful positive impact and very attractive financial returns to our investors. Hiring someone of Eva’s calibre is another significant step forward for the fund; her extensive experience of successful mid-market investing will help us raise our game further as we continue to build the UK’s leading impact-driven, long-term equity fund.”

Skills Training UK is one of the leaders in its sector: it has a long track record of growth and achievement in the design and delivery of employer-responsive apprenticeships and individual-focused skills programmes that align with business needs, creating sustainable employment and supporting social mobility. It has received numerous awards for the quality of its provision, including TES Training Provider of the Year 2019 and TES Apprenticeship Programme of the Year 2020.

Working with a number of funding partners in central and local Government, and with Local Economic Partnerships, Skills Training UK offers a diversified range of apprenticeships, traineeships, adult skills and employability courses which support 16-24 year-olds and adult learners, many of whom are from disadvantaged communities, to achieve positive destinations. Over 6,800 learners enrolled across a wide range of courses last year, including over 1,200 apprentices.

The investment in Skills Training UK follows Bridges’ ‘Future Skills’ investment theme, which is focused on shaping the workforce of the future (in line with SDG 4, Quality Education, Target 4.4 ). More than 80% of employers already think a lack of skills is damaging the UK’s competitiveness, resulting in one of the lowest productivity rates in the G7.

Changes to the world of work are likely to exacerbate this problem: by 2030, more than third of the jobs we do today could be automated, and 20% of the workforce are likely to be under-skilled. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and tighter immigration rules post-Brexit are also likely to create skills shortages in certain industries. So there is an urgent national need for high quality up-skilling, apprenticeship and other training provision.

Martin Dunford OBE, CEO, Skills Training UK, said: “We wanted to find a funding partner who not only could help us achieve our growth ambitions but also shared our focus on creating real and genuine impact by delivering enhanced skills and outcomes for our employer and learner customers. Bridges clearly knows this sector well from previous investments within its Future Skills theme, and we felt Evergreen’s combination of patient capital and hands-on strategic support was the perfect fit for us. We’re excited at the opportunity to work together to continue to build the business and help more people access quality skills training and employment.”

Tom Biddle, Head of Bridges Evergreen, said: “We’re delighted that Skills Training UK has chosen to partner with Evergreen. It has an outstanding offering, run by an expert, highly experienced and well-connected team. The world of work is likely to change profoundly over the next decade, and it’s our conviction that this will result in increasing demand for the skills and employment opportunities that Skills Training UK provides. We are looking forward to drawing on our combined experience in this sector to support Skills Training UK’s continued growth, while utilising our impact management expertise to drive better outcomes for a broader range of learners and employers.”

The Bridges team first identified Skills Training UK as a potential partner in 2017 through its thematic investment research, and approached management directly. This meant Evergreen was well-positioned to be selected as the preferred bidder when the business came to market in 2020. Tom Biddle, Luke Edwards, Laura Noorani, Cristina Spiller and Kyle Bentwood worked on the transaction, with Tom Biddle and Luke Edwards joining the board of Skills Training UK as part of the deal.

This conviction has shaped all of the intensive work we have done with our partners since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis.

Across the portfolio, our partners (with support from the Bridges team) have been finding innovative new solutions to protect their people, adapt their business or service models, and support those hardest-hit by the crisis.

Some have expanded their existing services to help the most vulnerable. Some are utilising spare capacity to provide time, expertise or resources to organisations on the front-line of the crisis. And some have been busy raising philanthropic funding to help their local community. Here are just a few of our favourite examples:

Adapting to support those in need

Although most of the schools served by Impact Food Group have (largely) closed down, the business has still been extremely active in supporting its local communities – by converting canteens into mini-markets for key workers (an innovation that may persist), by providing lunches to other local schools and children who are eligible for free school meals, and by supplying food to front-line NHS staff. These measures will help IFG to stand apart from its competitors and build important new relationships locally.

Similarly, our Single Homeless Prevention Service in London has also expanded its remit since the Government committed to freezing evictions and moving all rough sleepers into temporary accommodation for the duration of the lockdown. SHPS has been working with these very vulnerable individuals to support their transition into long-term accommodation, as well as helping them them access benefits and other services.

West London Zone has launched a ‘Bridging the Gap’ fundraising appeal to raise extra funds so it can support local families that are being hardest-hit by the crisis. It is aiming to raise £35,000, which it intends to use to help parents/carers support their children through the challenges ahead. This could mean providing food or other basic goods, or supplying technology and other resources to support online learning, or even offering language support to help them better understand their options. West London Zone has almost reached its target already, but it’s not too late to donate if you would like to: just click HERE.

Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership, a community support service for vulnerable people in West Yorkshire, has launched a dedicated Covid-19 service to offer support to those who would not have been referred into the service otherwise. Mobilised within a few days of the lockdown and drawing on the resources of all nine of our delivery partners, this service provides ongoing advice and emergency support (like food parcels), while also providing central coordination for services like foodbanks that rely on volunteers. By providing this service to the Local Authority, we are cementing our ongoing partnership while also driving better outcomes for some of the people most at risk from the virus.

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