LDC’s Dale Alderson and Chris Baker named in Real Deals Future 40

Dale Alderson, Partner and Head of LDC’s North West team, and Chris Baker, Investment Director in LDC’s South team, have been recognised in Real Deals’ Future 40 Mid-Market Investment Leaders for 2022, published today.

This year’s Future 40 Mid-Market Investment Leaders list, in association with Finatal, highlights investment professionals who were able to navigate and deliver outstanding value, strong exits and record returns in 2021.

Dale Alderson was commended for playing an instrumental role in leading LDC’s North West team to deliver a record year for transaction activity in 2021, including some of LDC’s most successful exits last year with SRL Traffic Systems, Pelsis and ChargePoint Technology.

Dale’s team exited SRL Traffic Systems, the leading provider of portable and temporary traffic equipment, after a two-year partnership during which SRL grew revenues by 72%. He also led LDC’s exit of pest control products manufacturer Pelsis following a successful four-year partnership. During that time, the business more than doubled its headcount to 600 people and grow global sales from €87m to €150m.

Dale was recognised for “building a team for the future”, having expanded LDC’s North West team through recruiting Jacob Leone, Camilla Greenwood and Grant Goodwin. He has also developed a comprehensive training programme to provide new LDC investment professionals with the skills and exposure to becoming leading investment professionals in future.

Chris Baker was included in the Real Deals Future 40 list for his role in leading LDC’s successful exit from data transformation and platform provider Aker Systems.

Founded in 2017, Aker Systems designs, builds and operates ultra-secure, cloud-based data environments for businesses across the private and public sectors. Chris led LDC’s investment as part of an MBO in 2020 and was responsible for instigating a large number of significant changes within the business, allowing Aker to double in size in a little more than a year and expand its workforce.

In particular, Chris was able to leverage his technology sector expertise to advise the management team on investing in its software platform and operations to ensure it had a solid platform from which to drive scale internationally. Chris then led the sale to US-based private equity firm Abry Partners in 2021.

You can read the full write ups on Chris and Dale, along with all of the other Real Deals Future 40 Investment Leaders in 2022, here.