Investment Associate Craft Capital

Are you a content driven PE investor, corporate finance professional or strategy consultant, who is at heart an entrepreneur and wants to join an ambitious PE firm?

Do the words “entrepreneurship, teamwork and fairness” ring home to you?

Short Description
Craft Capital is a successful and fast-growing private equity firm headquartered in Zeist. We are looking for an investment associate (2-5 years’ experience) to join their experienced and ambitious team.
This investment professional should be a top performer with experience in private equity corporate finance, or strategy consulting. They will have an entrepreneurial mind-set, hard-working with a dose of personality.

Company Profile
The current Craft Capital team consists of five professionals, two partners with excellent track records in private equity and entrepreneurship and investment banking, one senior Advisor with investment banking and PE background, one investment director (with investment banking and PE background) and an analyst who just joined the team. Craft Capital is a private equity fund, founded by Gerjhan Roerink and Pieter Leyssius The sole investor is the Roerink family, who founded Zuivelhoeve and who sold Heks’nkaas.. The Fund I is €70m has a tenor of 10 years. The fund has already made 2 investments; Continental Shell Fish organization (CSO) the oldest mussel grower/harvester in the Netherlands, and Vroom Funderingstechnieken, the largest expert in the delivery of complex foundation work.

Investment Criteria:
• Dutch family-owned companies operating in various sectors (with a sweet-spot in food) and where companies enjoy significant customer satisfaction. These companies are often characterized by superior levels of craftmanship.
• Majority tickets of between €4m-€8m
• EBITDA of at least €2m
• Experienced and entrepreneurial management team
• Significant opportunity for buy & build and/or organic growth

Approach:
Craft has an active approach in supporting entrepreneurs and managers with improving, building and growing their businesses into great companies:
• Their approach is collaborative, pragmatic and focused on the long term
• After investing in a company, they work together with management to create strategic and operational plans and provide the support necessary to realize these plans. They are hands on and pragmatic.
• They have substantial experience in managing entrepreneurial succession, international expansion and buy and builds

What makes Craft Capital a highly desired place to work
• Ambition: The partners have set a very ambitious growth schedule for the next 5 years. Their ultimate aim is to be a leading Equity Fund within the lower end mid market.
• Exceptional Performance: They have already closed two deals and both are already outperforming.
• Excellent investment team (experience, ambition, skills):
Gerjhan Roerink (owner and founding partner): Highly successful entrepreneur with previous investments in Zuivelhoeve (owner) and Heks’nkaas (founded and exited).
Pieter Leyssius (founding partner): Former banking professional with extensive (international) deal experience and Managing Partner of Gate Invest (Private Equity)
Lars van Guns (Investment Director): Private Equity at Maas Capital and investment banking experience at ABNAMRO
Maurice van Veggel: Former bulge bracket (London) investment banker (HSBC)
Renske Zijm: Analyst and former intern at Craft Capital
• Culture: Ambitious, output driven, entrepreneurial, pragmatic. Work hard and play hard. Professional but also room for humor.
• Growth and responsibility: Currently 5 FTE but will grow with a further two FTE (associate and investment manager). They are further supported by a high quality back-office team. Further investment team growth expected in ‘23 and beyond. It is a vibrant culture where you also get to play a role in shaping the team culture.
• Career and responsibility: In this setting you have the opportunity to pull responsibility towards you, with an accelerated career path to investment manager.

Job Description
In the role of investment associate your primary focus will be to evaluate and support execution activities and support the management of the portfolio. In summary, but not limited to:

Deal-flow and execution
• Support deal origination (e.g. market and company research, networking)
• Evaluation of investment opportunities (e.g. financial modelling, valuation, structuring, commercial due diligence)
• Support deal due diligence and documentation (financial, legal, tax and operational) by managing individual work-flows.
• Support deal negotiations and arrangement of bank financing

Portfolio management
• Support portfolio management (e.g. financial reporting, KPI setting, strategy development, performance improvement projects, buy-and-build activities)
• Support preparation and execution of refinancing and exits
• Periodic portfolio performance reviews, valuation and return calculations

Other
• Leadership: Support investment manager in developing of interns/starters
• General marketing and operational activities
• The investment associate will have a lot of direct interaction with CEOs, CFOs and M&A and other advisors. Continued personal development in the direction of investment manager

Requirements
• Strong academic background: Masters in a numerical discipline (Business, Finance, Econometrics, Engineering etc.). Strong grades will be a pre.
• 2 - 5 years of work experience in private equity, corporate finance (M&A, leverage finance or financial dd) or strategy consulting (Mckinsey, Bain, BCG…)
• The successful candidate is already able to execute some of the individual work streams with the M&A deal whether it is valuation, building a financial model, legal documentation, financial dd or commercial dd.
• The candidate is a top performer and received excellent performance reviews
• Self-starting, ability to work independently and take responsibility, ambitious and highly driven to succeed with high level of professional and commercial flair. A dose of personality is welcome. The social side is very important; energetic, down-to-earth and fun to win with!
• Ability to ‘connect’ with entrepreneurs and mangers is a must
• No 9-5 mentality Work hard, play hard.
• Native/fluent in Dutch

Triggered by this opportunity? Please contact Fishfin and let us elaborate on this unique place to work!
Michael Witts: 647304147, michael.witts@fishfin.nl