Ex-Cofunds chief launches private equity venture

Brett Williams, the former head of platforms Cofunds and Skandia, has launched a private equity firm with targets including financial services groups.

He has co-founded Lime Tree Investment Partners, which will invest in fast growth companies across the financial services sector, as well as areas such as entertainment, biotechnology and real estate.

Williams is a founding partner in Lime Tree alongside a number of well-known figures from the financial services industry.

He has teamed up with Tim Levy, the founder of alternative investment boutique Future Capital Partners (FCP), as well as fellow FCP partners Tim West and Neil Lewis.
Williams, who left Cofunds in 2010 and last year joined the board of boutique fund house Insynergy Investment Management as a non-executive director, will be responsible for finding investment opportunities in financial services.

He said: “The primary opportunity is to invest in businesses that can disrupt markets. RDR creates a disruption in financial services, and this creates opportunities for businesses.”

Williams said Lime Tree would back businesses by taking stakes directly or introducing companies to potential investors. This could include taking direct stakes in advisory and wealth management firms if the opportunity arose.

“In the market at the moment there is a shortage of capital,” he said. “Larger private equity funds are normally invested in larger scale businesses, because they need to make larger investments to make a return, so this makes Lime Tree a blank page opportunity.”