Chris Handy

Chris leads LDC’s team in West Midlands, based in Birmingham. He works closely with management teams across the Midlands looking to grow their business through the support of a private equity partnership.

Since joining LDC in 2014, Chris has led the investment in innovative law firm Harper James, the secondary buyout of precision engineering specialist ELE Advanced Technologies and the £22.5million management buyout of Precision Micro. He also supported LDCs investment in lift repair and maintenance provider Pace Group, specialist production agency Star Live, mobility solutions provider Kingswood and Aquavista in its transformational acquisition of Castle Marinas.

In addition, he led LDC’s investment and trade sale of SMH Fleet as well as the firm’s sale of A-Gas to global investment firm KKR. During the partnership with A-Gas, Chris supported the business in growing its geographic footprint and service capabilities. He then sat on the board of A-Gas following LDC’s re-investment alongside KKR, continuing the long term relationship with the management team until the exit to TPG Rise. He also led the recent successful exit and re-invest of Independent Governance Group. 

Chris has 20 years of industrial experience, with the majority of his career spent at Rolls-Royce in both operational and financial leadership roles. He was CFO of the energy division for five years, a £1billion revenue business and he spent five years as CFO of the gas turbines services division (revenue £1.6billion). Prior to this, Chris ran the in-house M&A team of Rolls Royce where notably he led the disposal of Vickers Turbine Components to private equity.

Before joining Rolls-Royce, Chris spent 10 years at PwC where he qualified as a chartered accountant in Birmingham, before moving to lead the Corporate Advisory team in the East Midlands where he was responsible for growing their regional presence.