By Victoria McGurran, Director of Private Client Relations, Maven Capital Partners
These are uncertain investment times. Public markets have been soaring, with the FTSE 100 and S&P 500 reaching record highs earlier this year. Yet geopolitical tensions and rising oil prices have quickly reintroduced volatility, with both major indices slipping from their recent highs as markets react to escalating global conflicts and inflation concerns.
Against this backdrop, private markets are receiving renewed attention, with private equity among the most popular options. While investing through funds remains the most common route into the asset class, deal-by-deal private equity is increasingly gaining traction, giving investors greater control over where their capital is deployed. Those private equity firms with strong national and regional networks, providing on the ground intelligence and extensive advisor relationships, are often best positioned to source the most attractive opportunities.
Conflict and Risk Casting a Shadow
International conflict and geopolitical risk have certainly cast a shadow. Russia’s war in Ukraine continues with no clear resolution, while recent conflict involving Iran has added fresh volatility to global markets. Given public market’s sensitivity to such events, it’s certainly no surprise that private markets have attracted further investor interest. Assets under management across private markets are forecast to grow at roughly twice the rate of public markets, reaching an estimated £65 trillion by 2032, with private equity expected to lead much of that expansion.
Private equity is one of the most popular areas of private markets and is a key component of sound portfolio construction. Traditional asset classes of equities and bonds are often highly correlated with broader market movements. By contrast, private equity investments offer diversification and typically behave differently, offering uncorrelated returns that can help buffer the impact on portfolios of economic shocks and market movements.
Evolving Approach to Accessing Private Equity
How investors access private equity is evolving, too. The blind pool fund model, in which capital is committed upfront, with a manager deciding where it is invested, remains common. But deal-by-deal investing, allowing investors to choose individual transactions instead of entrusting fund managers, reached a record $31 billion globally in 2023 - up 400% from 2019. This increasingly accessible trend demonstrates there may be a preference among professional investors for more control, transparency in capital deployment, and the flexibility to create portfolios aligned with their risk tolerance.
In a deal-by-deal model, investors get a detailed investment paper for each opportunity, including market review, due diligence findings, and projected returns. They decide based on their own assessment, and make a commitment, which is then used to invest in the underlying portfolio company upon completion of the deal. Investors can start with a small commitment, such as £25,000 per transaction, or more in other transactions depending on their personal circumstances.
Additionally, deal-by-deal investing can allow private equity managers to respond more flexibly to changing market conditions than traditional fund structures bound by predefined strategies.
Why Geography Matters
However, the deal-by-deal model is only as strong as the pipeline feeding it. And the quality of that pipeline depends heavily on where a firm has its people and their networks. The majority of UK private equity and venture capital activity remains concentrated in and around London. Under a tenth of UK venture capital reaches businesses outside London and the South East. According to the British Business Bank's 2025 Nations and Regions Tracker, 70 pence of every pound invested stays in the Capital.
This should give investors pause, given that commercial centres across Scotland, the North West, the North East and beyond are, by several key measures, outpacing the Capital in productivity and economic growth. For example, Greater Manchester’s annual GVA growth has averaged 3.1% from 2015-2023, double the UK average of 1.5% and outstripping London's growth during similar periods.
Such a concentration of investment in London creates intense competition for transactions and inflated entry valuations. For private client investors selecting individual transactions, the margin for error narrows considerably when entry valuations are stretched.
The practical consequence of geographic concentration is that corporate finance advisers and intermediaries outside London tend to work with firms that have a physical presence in their region. An adviser in Newcastle or Glasgow will, in all likelihood, bring opportunities to local investment professionals they know, trust and have worked with before. Firms without a presence in those regions are unlikely to see those transactions at all, regardless of how thorough their processes might be once an opportunity reaches them.
Advantages of a National Network
This approach has led Maven to build a network of eleven offices across the UK, allowing its investment teams to maintain close relationships with regional advisory and finance communities that originate transactions locally. Many opportunities come off-market through long-standing personal relationships, providing early access before formal marketing. This helps achieve more disciplined entry valuations than formal auctions.
This same regional pipeline also has an extension in Property. Maven’s specialist property team sources UK commercial real estate transactions and presents them to Investor Partners on a deal-by-deal basis. Many of these transactions are sourced off-market, leveraging the same regional relationships as the private equity pipeline.
Power of Regional Origination
Maven secures introductions to about 400 private equity and property transactions annually through its networks. Recent Investor Partner exits include: Oak Engage, a Durham-based employee engagement platform sold profitably in 2025; DPP, a leading UK commercial maintenance contractor that was realised in 2025 after strong operational growth; and Blis, a global programmatic advertising company bought by T-Mobile for $175 million.
In private equity, access is often shaped long before formal due diligence begins. Maven believes firms embedded within regional business ecosystems are often better positioned to source opportunities that centralised investment models may struggle to access.
