Riata Capital Group has been launched in Dallas by Jeff Fronterhouse, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Brazos Private Equity Partners, and Barron Fletcher, Founder and Managing Partner of Parallel Investment Partners. Riata will focus on sponsoring investments in privately held companies in the consumer, energy, healthcare and business & industrial services sectors.
“Barron and I have a long history going back over twenty-five years and have been socializing the concept of combining our experience, skill sets, and network of relationships for many years,” said Mr. Fronterhouse. “We have both been in the industry for over two decades and share very similar views on the private equity business, investing, and the value of relationships. We look forward to building Riata into a leading firm in our industry.”
In 1999, Mr. Fronterhouse co-founded Brazos, a Dallas-based private equity investment firm that has invested approximately $1 billion of equity capital across three private equity funds. Similarly, in 1999 Mr. Fletcher founded Parallel, also based in Dallas. Parallel has invested over $330 million of equity capital across two private equity funds. When you combine the experience of Riata’s two founders you find that they have sponsored more than 55 platform investments and 75 add-on acquisitions representing more than $4 billion in total transaction value.
Riata will look to make both control and non-control investments of $10 million to $50 million of equity capital in private companies in four industry sectors: consumer, energy, healthcare, and business & industrial services. The firm will invest throughout North America but prefers investments in the Southwest region. Transaction types will include recapitalizations of closely held or family businesses, buyouts and divisional carve-outs of non-core subsidiaries or divisions of larger companies, growth capital investments in high-growth category leading businesses, and CEO-led buy & builds (www.riatacapital.com).
“We are very excited about the launch of Riata, an investment platform that brings together strong capabilities in the private equity business,” said Mr. Fletcher. “Our team’s deep investment and operations experience, together with our historical success in building market-leading companies, provides a compelling and differentiated value proposition for both business owners and our investors. Jeff and I share a passion for investing and look to build Riata into a market leader.”
Mr. Fronterhouse and Mr. Fletcher are joined at Riata by other senior executives from Brazos who will lead the firm’s investment origination and portfolio company operational execution, and executives from Parallel who will focus on the firm’s finance, accounting and operations.
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 1-13-15
