Our last newsletter marked the end of the 2026 calendar year and this one comes just after we have closed the book on the 25/26 financial year. A lot has changed in a short three months!
Raising the roof with Cardo
Back in 2023, as part of Buckthorn Partners’ investment, we took a stake in the newly formed Cardo Group – a contractor focused on repairing, maintaining and upgrading social housing and public sector buildings – backing its acquisition of LCB Group.
Three years on, the business is thriving and we are pleased to be reinvesting in its future.
Since our initial investment, Cardo Group has scaled through strategic acquisitions across the UK to become a team of more than 950 people, expanding into new geographies and service offerings.
Cardo is a major player in protecting and upgrading the built environment at both a national and local level and has made a significant contribution to the UK’s carbon reduction efforts while easing pressures on housing providers.
It has been a pleasure working with Chief Executive Liam Bevan as the business continues to pass key milestones, among them major contract wins and strong financial results. We look forward to the next chapter.
Launching futures at Kids Planet
After a productive five years working with Kids Planet as a minority partner behind lead investor Fremman Capital, we successfully realised a sale of our stake in the business via a continuation vehicle raised to fund the company’s next stage of growth.
Founded in 2008 and headquartered in the UK, Kids Planet is the second largest and fastest-growing nursery operator in the country, with more than 270 nurseries across England and Wales. The Company has built an outstanding reputation for the quality of its early years education and childcare, pursuing a targeted consolidation and integration strategy within the highly fragmented UK market.
Since Fremman’s initial investment in 2021, Kids Planet has more than tripled its nursery footprint, through a combination of continued development within its existing site network, greenfield openings and disciplined buy-and-build execution.
Exceptionally led by founder and CEO Clare Roberts, Kids Planet has a bright future driven by the Company’s proven UK growth model and the potential for selective international expansion.
Putting planes in the sky with Zenix
In the very final days of 2025, we partnered once again with Sullivan Street in the £200m carve-out acquisition and rebrand of Zenix Aerospace – formerly the aerostructure business of Senior plc.
Zenix is a global manufacturer of structural airframe and engine components with decades of expertise in the sector, comprising seven sites across the UK, US, Malaysia and Thailand. Whilst the core footprint will remain the same, Zenix has now set up a head office in Birmingham under new Group CEO Scott McLarty, who joined the firm after two decades with Spirit AeroSystems.
With a solid flight path ahead, we look forward to seeing more Zenix-manufactured components delivered, helping put planes in the sky for years to come.
Agito Medical announced the acquisition of Goring Medical Projects Ltd (GMP), a UK-based company recognised for its expertise in technical support and project management for diagnostic imaging equipment. GMP is a natural fit for Agito Medical and strengthens its ability to support customers across the full imaging lifecycle.
Meanwhile, Cardo Group has made three acquisitions since the turn of the year. It has integrated Trident Maintenance Services, a well-established provider of building maintenance and improvement services; Faskin Group, one of Scotland’s most trusted names in roofing; and Gunfire, a provider of passive fire protection services to the construction sector, into its operations.
Ignite Growth has added APH Hydraulic Engineering to its stable of specialist engineering businesses including Newcastle Tool and Gauge and ABS Precision. Headquartered in Glasgow with a 40-year heritage, APH designs and manufactures hydraulic cylinders and actuators for critical applications across defence, subsea, and broader industrial markets. Ignite is partnering with Mark Scudder and Stephen McGuire as they lead APH into its next phase of growth.
Finally, Acteon, which provides solutions to many of the world’s leading offshore renewables and traditional energy companies, has sold Claxton to Norwegian based AF Gruppen for an enterprise value of c£63.5m. Claxton was its division focused primarily on decommissioning services. The deal is subject to Norwegian regulatory approval, with completion expected during Q2 2026.
Souter in the news
Our founder, Sir Brian, was profiled in articles by two of Scotland’s leading business journalists this month.
Brian’s pointed observations on the UK’s lacking risk appetite – made as part of our triennial Investment Review last October – piqued the interest of seasoned business writer Kenny Kemp, who recently published an in-depth cover story for his April edition of The Business magazine. The piece traced Souter Investments from its inception, born out of Brian’s desire to diversify the family’s net worth, to the motivations and ethos that continue to shape our investment strategy today.
In Brian’s words: “I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and I enjoy working with other entrepreneurs. It keeps me engaged and interested; we’re always out meeting great people running good businesses.” You can read the whole interview here.
As part of his weekly column in The Scotsman earlier this month, freelance writer Jeremy Grant also sat down for a conversation with Brian – which highlighted the 20-year history of Souter Investments, the diverse portfolio that illustrates our sector-agnostic approach to investing, and the more than 22,000 grants from our returns that have been channelled through the Souter Charitable Trust into worthy causes around the world. You can read Jeremy’s column here.
Managing Director John Berthinussen also spoke with Juliet Martin at the Financial Times / Mandate Wire on secondary transactions and continuation vehicles, stating that “some continuation deals will stack up well, have strong logic and offer appropriate risk adjusted returns. Others may not. We've seen many, all different.”
As usual, each scenario has its own dynamics and at Souter Investments we benefit from the flexibility to look at each deal on its own merits – part of the upside of being an independent and flexible single-family office working with many independent sponsors on a deal-by-deal basis.
