We buy small and mid-size businesses and help run them.

Fench Capital acquires majority and significant minority stakes in lower to mid-market companies, focusing on the UK, usually where an owner wants a considered exit, and where operating experience matters more than financial engineering.

The company

Investors who have actually run manufacturing businesses.

Owners who have built and run their business care about what happens to it next. They care about their people and the customers who depend on it. Our aim is to build on what they have created rather than take it apart.

Because we have run companies ourselves, we can step into management. That allows an owner-manager to exit on a sensible timetable, or move to an advisory role, without the business losing its footing.

We are backed by private capital and structure each transaction on its own terms. There is no fund mandate, no queue for investment committee and no fixed date by which we have to sell.

What we look for

Location: Focus on UK-headquartered businesses. Operations and customers can be anywhere.
Size: Typically £1m to £5m of EBITDA. We will look at larger transactions alongside a partner.
Sectors: Specialised manufacturing, industrial products and services, and the businesses that supply and support them.
Position: A majority shareholding, or a significant minority with a clear path to control.
Market: Durable underlying demand and a defensible position, rather than a business riding a single cycle.
Situation: Succession, carve-outs, growth and turnarounds. We are comfortable with companies facing operational or management difficulty.
Angle: Businesses that would benefit from a merger, a targeted add-on, or a longer programme to consolidate their segment.

How we work

Terms built around the seller

We shape each transaction around the financial and personal outcome an owner wants, including phased exits and continued involvement.

We can run it ourselves

Where a business needs it, one of us takes an executive role, up to and including chief executive. Not every deal calls for that, but it is genuinely on offer. A financial buyer cannot make the same commitment.

Add-on acquisitions

We have identified, financed and integrated acquisitions before, and we help management teams do the same once we are invested.

A network that is useful

Contacts across industry and private equity who support our appraisal process and open doors afterwards.

Team

Nick Hodler

Founder

Nick was Group CEO of Arc 1825, the world's largest glass tableware manufacturer, until 2026, and continues to serve as an independent member of its supervisory board. Arc is a 200-year-old French company employing around 7,000 people across four production sites, some 4,000 of them in France.

He ran Arc's Middle East business before becoming group chief executive in 2018. Earlier he worked at Firmenich in Vienna and at The Boston Consulting Group in Zurich and New York.

Nick holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. He is fluent in English and French, with business proficiency in German and Italian.

Pablo Villanueva

Director

Pablo has twenty years in finance with a focus on industrials, with transaction experience across private equity, investment banking M&A and corporate development.

He has also held operating roles in global manufacturing — head of planning and M&A, interim finance director, group financial controller, and head of post-merger integration at a €1.5bn industrial group.

Pablo has worked across Europe and is fluent in English, French and Spanish. He holds a degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from London Business School, and is a qualified accountant.

Contact

If you are selling a business, or advising someone who is, we will give you a straight answer quickly.

Contact Fench Capital at contact@fench-capital.com

London, United Kingdom