Evergreen Partners

Decisions are made by the four directors: Simon Plowman, Tony Batterton, Mark Hutton, and Amy Ellis. Plowman, Batterton, and Hutton co-founded the firm in 2017 after careers at Direct Capital; Ellis joined as a partner in 2023 from PwC Corporate Finance. There is no external investment committee, and the group has worked together on more than 40 private company investments across New Zealand and Australia.

The firm relies on the personal networks of its four partners, who collectively hold or have held board seats at over a dozen private and public companies, including Scales Corporation, Briscoe Group, and NZ King Salmon. This director-level reach across New Zealand’s mid-market, combined with long-standing relationships from the Direct Capital era, generates a proprietary pipeline of succession-driven and expansion-stage opportunities.

No. It operates as a private equity fund manager with a single closed-end fund raised in 2017. The firm is owned by its four partner-directors and manages third-party capital, which is inconsistent with the single-family office structure that manages the wealth of one family.

The strategy is overwhelmingly direct. Evergreen has made direct minority and control investments in seven portfolio companies to date and has also executed one public-company placement via on-market share purchases in Acrow Australia. There is no disclosed track record of making LP commitments into other PE funds.

The firm is formally generalist but explicitly highlights primary sectors, industrials, healthcare, and FMCG/retail as areas of deepest experience. Actual portfolio exposure confirms this pattern: construction scaffolding (NZ Scaffolding Group), civil engineering (Hiway Stabilisers), retirement living (Qestral), lobster export (Fiordland Lobster), tourism (NZ Fine Touring Group), and specialist insurance (Delta International Group).

The firm’s public materials do not explain the reason for the Herzliya registration. It is unusual for a New Zealand–focused PE manager formed by New Zealand–based principals. Operationally, the investment team appears to work from New Zealand and Australia; the Israeli domicile has no obvious connection to portfolio companies or disclosed deal activity.

Evergreen markets itself as a provider of 'patient capital' and does not operate a fixed fund life that would force exits on a predetermined timeline. The 2017 fund is the firm’s sole fund. The earliest portfolio companies — NZ Scaffolding Group and Hiway Stabilisers, both 2017 and 2018 investments — remained in the portfolio as of the most recent disclosures in 2025, indicating a multi-year holding period.