Private EquityInvestment Strategy

In more than three decades of private equity investing, we have sought to build partnerships with the management teams of growing and enduring businesses. Our long-tenured team has experience aligning with company leadership to help world-class businesses achieve their full potential.

We bring capital and resources and act as thought partners in ways that are specific to each company. Over the course of our partnerships, we have helped enterprises build management and operating systems to enable scalable, profitable growth. We have helped businesses grow into new domestic and global markets; expand customer bases; execute and integrate mergers and acquisitions; build high-performing Boards of Directors; optimize capital structure; recruit talent, and enhance pricing, distribution, and systems. Our approach has been applied to a variety of different industry sectors and stages of growth, from startups to mid-sized companies to large global enterprises.

We believe that relationships matter; and our partnership approach allows us to engage and collaborate with management teams to align on a collective long-term vision and goals. We operate with integrity, honesty, mutual respect, and an analytical, truth-seeking mindset in all our interactions. The collaboration between our private equity team and our colleagues at Stockbridge is additive to our private equity investment approach, industry expertise, and understanding of the dynamics of the public markets.

Company Attributes

We seek to partner with high-quality, sustainable businesses that we believe are well-positioned for long-term growth. Most of our investments have several of the below characteristics, including those that:

  • Are led by innovative management teams capable of building an enduring business
  • Operate in sectors and segments with attractive long-term demand tailwinds
  • Offer differentiated products or services that are gaining market share, with defensible market positions and durable business models
  • Have a proven consolidation playbook with a large addressable target universe
  • Have multiple ways to grow value, both organically and through acquisitions, and a leading or emerging market position that results in scale benefits
  • Demonstrate strong organizational infrastructure, including management systems & reporting, and a proven ability to attract, retain, and incentivize talent
  • Are using leading technologies to enable growth and build share, and/or disrupting and innovating their markets

Investment Parameters

Since our inception, we have raised 10 private equity funds with more than $20 billion of capital commitments, and are currently investing from our tenth private equity fund of $5.8 billion. We benefit from a flexible investment mandate and are open to partnering with other private equity investors. Our typical investment parameters are:

  • Enterprise values of $200 million to $2 billion
  • Equity investment size of $100 million to $1 billion
  • Majority or minority ownership positions
  • Buyouts or management recapitalizations, partial recapitalizations, growth capital, and, in certain situations, public securities
  • Location in North America, while opportunistically investing globally and also working with our investments to expand internationally