British private equity investor Bridgepoint has agreed to buy a majority stake in the former KPMG UK restructuring business Interpath, the latest in a wave of private equity deals for professional services groups.
The British buyout firm has struck a deal valuing the advisory business at about £800 million (€920 million), according to people familiar with the terms. The FT reported in June that Interpath’s owners were targeting an £800 million valuation.
The sale to Bridgepoint, which previously invested in Belfast-headquartered consulting firm Fscom in 2022, secures an exit for Interpath’s private equity owner HIG Capital.
HIG Capital bought the business from Big Four accounting firm KPMG for about £380 million in 2021 and has rapidly expanded the business internationally.
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Charles Welham, a partner at Bridgepoint, said the buyout firm planned to put further investment into Interpath’s international expansion.
“Interpath has moved quickly from a UK only business to establish a strong pan-European platform, which makes it a natural fit for Bridgepoint . . . We are excited to get going together, putting more momentum behind scaling the business in key markets,” he said.
Interpath chief executive Mark Raddan said the group wanted to use this next stage of investment to “go and chase down AlixPartners, Alvarez & Marsal and FTI Consulting but with a differentiated culture”.
He said the group’s proposition is about “the culture that we’re building to attract key partner talent from the Big Four, who want a change”.
Since spinning out of KPMG almost five years ago, Interpath has branched out from restructuring to adjacent areas such as corporate finance advice. It has opened offices across France, Germany, Spain and Hong Kong, and employs about 1,000 people across 12 countries.
An Irish arm of the group was established in 2022 by a number of former partners of KPMG and Deloitte in Dublin.
Then-KPMG’s Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson, best known as the joint liquidators of IBRC, and then-Deloitte Ireland partners Ken Fennell and Mark Degnan, handed in their notices and joined forces to set up Interpath Advisory Ireland.
The team comprises about 120 staff. Senior hires have included Denis Herlihy, former managing partner of BDO Limerick, to set up a tax team, and Andy Tallon, previously of CBRE’s capital advisory business in Ireland, to establish a debt advisory business.
Clara Coakley, a former executive director with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs in Europe, also joined as a director to its growing debt advisory team.
Headquartered in Dublin, it has three offices from Belfast to Cork and works with clients across deals, advisory and restructuring capabilities.
It works with clients across a range of sectors with a particular focus on property, retail, leisure and hospitality, building and construction, aviation and sport and media.
Its team has worked on restructuring cases such as the receivership of The Square shopping centre in Tallaght, the windup of IBRC, the liquidation of PFS Card Services, and the administration of Co Down-based electronic manufacturing services provider Nitronica.
The Irish arm reported a €5.7 million operating loss in the year ended March 31st, 2024, which was its first full year of operation in Ireland. The figure compared with a loss of €3.3 million in the previous period.
The company’s revenue rose from €1.8 million to €13.1 million, while staff costs rose from €1.9 million to €14.7 million.
Although the wider group also initially struggled to make a profit after spinning out of KPMG, reporting losses in 2022 and 2023, it turned a £3.1 million pre-tax profit in 2024.
Accounts filed on Sunday show the group fell to a pre-tax loss of £8.1 million for the year to March 2025 on revenues of £198.1 million.
The carve-out from KPMG was part of a trend among the Big Four accountancy firms to cut back on conflicts of interest that restricted the work different teams at the firms could take on.
In the same year Deloitte also sold off its restructuring unit to the CVC-backed advisory company Teneo.
Private equity groups have since struck a series of deals for professional services firms, including accountancy firms, with Grant Thornton UK last year completing the sale of a majority stake to buyout firm Cinven.
Interpath ran the UK administration process for Claire’s Accessories, has been involved in the restructuring of TGI Fridays UK and completed a financing review for the owners of Côte Brasserie. (Additional reporting: The Financial Times Limited 2026)
