dante (l), Steadfast, Enduring

Dante Investments is a long-term holding company dedicated to buying and building family owned businesses that are the backbone of the UK's manufacturing, engineering, distribution and service industries.

Our investment philosophy is based on supporting companies that can be developed and grown for the long term in partnership with the incumbent management team.

Our Approach

Our objective is to establish relationships built on trust, integrity and respect. We believe in full transparency and straightforward communication. We seek to understand and appreciate the business owner’s point of view and strive to structure transactions that find common ground.

We have started and grown our own businesses and can appreciate the significant work and entrepreneurial spirit that goes into building a company from the ground up. We feel a tremendous responsibility not just to remember a business’s founding story, but to honour it by ensuring success moving forward.

We care deeply about preserving the legacy of the companies we acquire.

We play long term games, with long term people. We are committed to backing companies that we believe will stand the test of time. The majority of companies that we engage have been in the hands of management for decades. We are investing our capital and those of patient investors which means that we are under no pressure to adhere to predetermined time horizons, which differentiates us from a traditional private equity fund.

We have sat on both sides of the table as buyers and sellers of our own companies. We recognise it takes a lot of time, energy and money to get a deal across the finish line. You want to work with a partner who is fair, thorough and committed. When we make a commitment to transact, we mean it and have the track record to back it up.

Our Team

Ollie Horsnall founded Dante Investments to provide retiring business owners and current entrepreneurs with liquidity and an aligned succession plan.

His background is in venture capital and company creation. Past experiences includes; implementing a buy/build/invest strategy for a value-based single family office. Founding Member & Vice-President at The Venture Collective LLC, a New-York venture capital fund, investing in US & UK early-stage tech businesses.

He applies an "old lock, new key" way of thinking to help management teams generate additional value from their business development and strategic initiatives.

Michael Savage has more than 15 years of corporate finance and private equity experience. From 2010 to December 2022, he worked in the private equity division of The Carlyle Group and has been based in the UK since 2012. While at Carlyle, he was involved in more than $1.5 billion of transactions and led a number of private equity investments in the UK and Ireland. He served on the board of 4 of Carlyle's portfolio companies.

Working alongside Carlyle portfolio companies, Michael supported more than 40 follow-on acquisitions. These investments often involved providing liquidity to UK founder / family owned businesses who were seeking to manage generational transitions and, in some cases, partnering with management to provide access to capital, technology, and infrastructure to continue scaling their businesses.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Michael worked as an investment banker at Moelis & Company and UBS in New York focused on M&A, capital raising, and restructuring transactions.

What we look for?