Our culture

Based in a single office in London, we benefit from short lines of communication and a cohesive and distinctive culture.

The senior partners have worked together for over 15 years and most have been at Graphite for over 20. This gives us a wealth of experience and a broad range of long-term contacts, which are of great value in supporting our portfolio companies. We operate as a genuine partnership, with ownership and incentives broadly spread across the team, promoting stability and a strong, cohesive ethos.

We enjoy what we do and like working together in an informal environment. We take collective responsibility for our decisions and are totally committed to the success of Graphite and our investments. We believe this comes across in our dealings with portfolio companies and plays a very important role in building strong partnerships with management teams.

Our funds

Blue-chip investors from across the world invest in Graphite’s funds.

We are one of the most experienced investors in mid-sized businesses in the UK. Since inception in 1981, we have raised and managed nine limited partnership funds, seven of which are now fully or largely realised. We typically raise new funds every four to five years, which have frequently been over-subscribed. In 2018 we raised over £500m for Graphite Capital Partners IX.

We are backed by a group of leading investors from across the globe, including well-known pension funds, insurance companies and endowment funds. Approximately 39 per cent of our latest fund come from the UK, 44 per cent from Europe and the balance from the US and Japan.

 

 

Investors in Graphite Capital Partners IX

UK 39%
Other Europe 44%
ROW 17%

Investors in Graphite Capital Partners IX by type

Fund of funds 52%
Pension fund 22%
Insurance 10%
Bank 6%
Charity 5%
Family office 5%

Returns

Over the last 25 years our investments have generated a consistent return averaging more than 2.5x cost.

We have consistently generated high returns through many different economic cycles, driven by long-term revenue and profit growth by our portfolio companies, rather than cost reduction. Despite persistent economic headwinds since the Great Financial Crisis, our performance since 2006 has been particularly strong, with most of our investments having been sold at more than twice cost and many generating multiples of over 3x. Staff numbers of both our 2007 and our 2013 fund portfolios have broadly doubled to around 10,000 under our ownership and those of our 2019 fund portfolio have also grown materially already.