Harwood Private Equity

Christopher Mills, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Harwood Capital, personally leads investment decisions. Mills has over four decades of experience in small-cap investing and activist situations, previously co-founding JO Hambro Capital Management. He controls the investment committee and final sign-off for both new platform acquisitions and portfolio company exits.

The firm sources deals through Mills' deep network of corporate contacts, brokers, and professional services firms built over four decades. Because Harwood does not run a traditional fundraising process, sellers and intermediaries often approach the firm directly, knowing it can execute quickly using its own balance sheet and permanent capital. This also creates a pipeline of off-market and privately negotiated transactions.

Structurally, it operates as the private equity division of Harwood Capital LLP, an asset manager, and draws its primary capital from permanent investment vehicles like North Atlantic Smaller Companies Investment Trust. This gives it characteristics of both an activist public-markets investor and a buy-and-build private equity firm. It does not raise blind-pool funds from LPs, which distinguishes it from most conventional PE fund managers.

The firm uses moderate leverage at the portfolio-company level, typically through asset-backed lending facilities arranged after acquisition. However, its permanent-capital structure means it is not constrained by fund-level debt covenants or typical private-equity interest-coverage hurdles. This allows the firm to hold positions through industry cycles without forced exits.

Harwood Capital manages the North Atlantic Smaller Companies Investment Trust, a UK-listed investment trust, and the private equity team co-invests alongside it. This trust provides a large pool of permanent capital that Harwood Private Equity can deploy into direct buyout transactions, creating a symbiotic relationship between the listed and private investment portfolios.