The Royal Bank of Scotland's private equity group is expanding its Scottish operation with the addition of NatWest Development Capital to its Edinburgh office and the appointment of Derek Gardner as director.

Gardner worked for eight years with NatWest Equity Partners where he helped establish their Scottish office in 1989 before moving to Manchester, where he headed their operations in the northwest of England. Under Gardner's reign the Manchester office executed the £20m (€32m) management buy-in of Pennine Computer Services in May 1999, which was subsequently sold to Alphameric plc for £60m in early 2000, and the £20m buyout of Datel Ferranti, which was sold to Ultra Electronics in April 2000 for £44m.