Rob McCreary

Over the years I have learned that the real news begins in the back pages of every newspaper, especially The Wall Street Journal. Therefore, I was not surprised to find on page C8 of the February 6, 2015 Wall Street Journal an article about how changes in money market mutual funds will be bad for […]

Private Equity firms fashion themselves as pretty good students of relative value. While managers may have different investment styles from deep value and relative value, to growth at a reasonable price and straight growth, they all understand the nuances of valuation. For example, as a value investor we have set our benchmarks to tell us

Happy New Year! PE4Fams has not been slacking in the New Year … just busy with multiple opportunities to grow our portfolio companies and acquire some new platforms. Over the last 30 days our team has been conducting all kinds of due diligence from quality of earnings to customer interviews and market surveys. In varying

As lifelong Cleveland Browns fans, the private equity team at CapitalWorks has shared the collective angst of the City regarding the demotion of Brian Hoyer and the fumbled handoff to Johnny Manzel. We have seen this play before – 18 times before – and we all know how it ends. Bernie Kosar has taken some

We have seen many signs of re-shoring in our portfolio companies. Some of that trend is a function of China suppliers re-prioritizing their manufacturing focus towards high unit volumes where they can justify capital investment in productivity enhancing technologies. Niche manufacturers, like our fractional horsepower AC/DC motor business, have lower unit volumes and seem to

Recent financial news is full of warnings about a slowdown in worldwide growth. From Wal-Mart and AT&T, to IBM and Target, it appears that same store sales and unit growth are challenged. This is amazing to me in light of the highly stimulative policies employed by central banks around the world from Japan, to China,

The overwhelming response to Chris O’Dell’s news that she is retiring from CapitalWorks and taking her talents to Charlotte, NC reminds me that success in private equity, like life, is all about your people. Chris has earned the affection and goodwill of our investors, portfolio management teams, intermediaries and advisors through a consistently cheerful, friendly

Assets under management in private equity funds continue to grow and so does the desire for LP’s to see co-investment opportunities alongside these funds. Generally reserved for the most important investors, many fund managers have entered into these arrangements to get proprietary deal flow, deep industry expertise, exceptional portfolio governance or large fund commitments from

The SEC is an Uninvited Guest Title IV of the Dodd-Frank legislation enacted in 2010 requires investment advisers managing more than $150 million in assets to register with the SEC. This includes private equity firms like ours. Once registered, advisers are subject to audit and enforcement actions by the SEC (often administrative procedures, instead of

Over the past two weeks, we’ve discussed how to create a culture of accountability and what is involved in long-term incentive plans. In the final installment of our compensation series, we take a look at some recent trends in compensation and ask “What is your company’s compensation philosophy?” According to Verisight’s 2014 compensation report, 39%