Hambro International Equity Partners

Hambro International Equity Partners, a Boston venture capital company "in the business of investing in existing businesses," invested approximately 400,000 dollars in INSLAW in 1983. As lead investor it placed its partner Richard D'Amore on the company's board of directors, and in 1984 its Ed Goodman asked Daniel Tessler of Tessler and Cloherty, who had that year taken over management of the 53rd Street Ventures fund with its smaller INSLAW stake, to meet Bill Hamilton about INSLAW's cash-flow problems.¹

Hamilton's affidavit in the INSLAW litigation alleged that in December 1984 Tessler threatened that neither 53rd Street Ventures nor Hambro would help the company raise capital unless the Hamiltons surrendered voting control of their stock, and that Patricia Cloherty had said she "knew all about" Earl Brian's role in the company's troubles. D'Amore told the investigators of the special counsel Nicholas J. Bua that he had never heard Cloherty say any such thing and knew of no role played by Brian; Tessler and Cloherty denied the ultimatum, and Bua found the allegation not credible. INSLAW entered Chapter 11 in February 1985. The vault's pages refer to the firm as Hambro Venture Capital and as Hambro International Equity Partners; the special counsel's report uses the latter name and the shorter "Hambro International."¹