Southlake Equity Group has closed the firm’s inaugural fund, Southlake Equity Fund, LLC. Southlake was founded in 2007 to invest in US-based lower‐middle market companies.
The new fund positions Southlake to continue its strategy with a committed capital base. The fund will continue to target US-based manufacturing, distribution and business services companies with enterprise values from $20 million to $200 million. Southlake invests from $20 million to $50 million of both debt and equity in control and non-control transactions.
“Southlake’s strategy is based on combining very patient capital with deep management partnerships to build industry‐leading companies,” said Tom Keene, Managing Partner at Southlake. “Our objective is to create extraordinary businesses, and extraordinary takes time.”
To date, Southlake has made five acquisitions: Waples Manufacturing, a FT Worth-based machining company serving the energy, aerospace, telecommunications and printing industries (www.waples.com), was acquired in 2012 and sold in 2014 to Banyan Mezzanine; American Trailer Works (ATW), a manufacturer of utility and cargo trailers that was formed through the combination of three acquisitions – PJ Trailers (2008), Carry-On Trailer (2010), and RC Trailers (2012) – and through the construction of several greenfield manufacturing facilities. ATW was sold to Bain Capital in 2016 (www.americantrailerworks.com); and Titan Spine, a Mequon, WI-based designer and manufacturer of titanium interbody devices used in a variety of fusion techniques in the lumbar and cervical spine (www.titanspine.com). Titan was acquired in July 2016 and is a current portfolio company of Southlake.
“We look forward to deploying our committed capital base to form productive partnerships with the management teams we are fortunate to work with,” said David Spuria, Partner and General Counsel at Southlake. “We will invest in a select number of transactions and will target one to two investments each year over the next three to five years. This focused approach allows us to build the rapport with our management partners associated with becoming a great company.”
“We are deeply honored and incredibly fortunate to have the backing of some of America’s leading entrepreneurial families – families who know from their own experience building companies what it takes in terms of time, effort, capital and single‐mindedness to build great businesses,” added Mr. Keene.
Southlake Equity Group was founded in 2007 and is based near Dallas in Southlake, TX (www.southlakeequity.com).
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | April 24, 2017