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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 £800mn, according to people familiar with the terms. The FT reported in June that Interpath’s owners were targeting an £800mn valuation.
The sale to Bridgepoint secures an exit for Interpath’s private equity owner HIG Capital, which bought the business from Big Four accounting firm KPMG for about £380mn in 2021 and has rapidly expanded the business internationally.
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.
Chief executive Mark Raddan said Interpath wanted to use this next stage of investment to “go and chase down AlixPartners, Alvarez & Marsal and FTI Consulting but with a differentiated culture — our 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.
Although the firm Interpath initially struggled to make a profit after spinning out of KPMG, reporting losses in 2022 and 2023, it turned a £3.1mn pre-tax profit in 2024. Accounts filed at Companies House on Sunday show the group fell to a pre-tax loss of £8.1mn for the year to March 2025 on revenues of £198.1mn.
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.
