Rutland announces promotions

UK mid-market private equity firm Rutland Partners has announced four promotions to its investment team, effective from 1 January 2006.
 
Neel Das, who joined Rutland Partners in 2003 as director of finance, has been promoted to partner. Prior to Rutland, Das was a director in the mergers and acquisition practice of KPMG in the US before leaving to launch Benchmark Capital’s venture capital fund in Europe.
 
Ben Slatter has been promoted to investment director. Slatter joined Rutland in 2001 and has been involved with acquisitions including The Music Group and Harvey & Thompson. Prior to Rutland, Slatter worked at accounting and consulting group Arthur Andersen.
 
Oliver Jones, who joined Rutland in 2004 and has worked on the Advantage Healthcare and Harvey & Thompson transactions, has been promoted to investment manager. He previously worked at KPMG.
 
David Wingfield has also been promoted to investment manager, having joined Rutland in 2005 from Close Brothers Corporate Finance and, prior to that, having spent time with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
 
Rutland describes itself as a turnaround investor and invests in UK-based under-performing companies with enterprise values of between £20 million and £50 million. Its activities are funded partly through private equity and partly through the listed Rutland Investment Trust.