Our Philosophy

We seek to combine our knowledge, experience, and capital with those of strong management teams, so that together we can build significant shareholder value. We aim to accomplish this while ensuring that all of our stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, and lenders, benefit from the long-term success of the business.

We believe that, by working to develop strong businesses, we are helping to generate significant benefits for our stakeholders and contributing to our community as a whole. Our Investee Companies have consistently exhibited the following characteristics:

Management that has a meaningful amount of their net worth invested in the business.
Meaningful management shareholdings are the most effective way of aligning management’s interest directly with the success of the business. Ultimately, it is human nature to care most about what affects us personally, and we’re most likely to protect and strive to grow that in which we have a vested personal interest. Partnering with existing owners/managers or providing opportunities for managers to become owners is core to our philosophy.

Management with open minds and a strong sense of their strengths and weaknesses.
While management undoubtedly knows best how to run the day-to-day operations, sometimes the daily focus on running the business can consume even the most talented of management teams. An outside perspective from experienced advisors around strategy, capital allocation, risk management, and succession planning (amongst other issues) can often be just what management needs to help them steer the right course and optimize the growth of the business. We are focused on investing in companies with management teams that actively communicate with their investor partners and are genuinely interested in our input.

A business with a strong sense of purpose.
Every business exists to satisfy the needs of its customers, but we believe that truly successful organizations serve a much broader community of stakeholders. When companies pursue a higher purpose, their activities will naturally benefit their customers, employees, communities, and the environment, which will, in turn, create value for management and shareholders alike.

Both strategic and opportunistic about their exit plan.
Our structure allows us to invest in companies for the long-term, and, frankly, once we have invested in a business, taken the time to understand the business and its industry, and have developed a good working relationship with the management team, we are not overly anxious to run to the exit. That being said, we believe that management and investors regularly addressing the exit strategy is critical to creating and, ultimately, realizing on shareholder value.