The company, founded by John and James Pirrie, said that the price expectations of some sellers caused complications in the market.

However, Nevis Capital emphasised that the company was in the market for deals despite the uncertainty around Brexit.

Nevis Capital partner Brian Aitken said the firm is taking a long term view and accepts that uncertainty is something that businesses just need to live with.

Reviewing the past year, Nevis Capital said that it wanted to invest in profitable businesses which it could help to achieve long-term success, The Herald reports.

Nevis wrote in the review: “We’re still seeing lots of opportunities (more than 120 in 2019) but we set ourselves a high bar and we know there is great value in declining the wrong ones. This year, we’ve also seen a trend for deals not completing due to unrealistic Seller price expectations. This is a trend that seems to have been reasonably widespread.

“Sometimes our time and investment will be best spent on the current portfolio and other times on new deals.”

The firm emphasised that 2019 had been a strong year for all the companies it had supported. The total turnover, operating profit and employee numbers if the firm’s in Nevis Capital’s portfolio have more than doubled since Nevis invested in them.

Nevis Capital’s portfolio includes generator business DTGen, pipework specialist James Ramsay and Merkland Tank, all of which are based in Glasgow. It also includes Cumbria’s Astec Precision.