View from the C-suite: Are you diversifiying?

CFOs and CEOs from seven mid-market firms answer the key questions facing their industry.

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OUR MID-MARKET PANEL

Nathan Brown
(Managing Director – Wind Point Partners)

Omar Hassan
Principal and CFO – Cloverlay

Heramb Ramachandran
(CFO – XPV Water Partners)

Brian Ramsay
(President – Littlejohn & Co)

Alex Slusky
(Founder and CIO – Vector Capital)

Béla Szigethy
(Co-CEO – The Riverside Company)

Ted Virtue
(CEO – MidOcean Partners)

Are you diversifying?

Omar Hassan: We’re a relatively new firm that launched in 2015, and we feel LPs would like us to stay true to our core competencies.

Brian Ramsay: For nearly 25 years, our focus has been to deploy capital in situations that can benefit from some sort of transformation. We started with control private equity, then added expertise and solutions in special situations and distressed debt. More recently we have built teams to invest in performing credit and more highly structured capital solutions. When an opportunity arises to use that knowledge to support a business transformation, we want to be able to say yes.

Ted Virtue: MidOcean diversified into credit in 2009, where we now manage over $8 billion in assets across a number of strategies in corporate debt. These credit strategies stem from our specialized experience and expertise in the mid-market, drawing on the strong industry-focused network of contacts our team has built up over close to two decades. We now manage two long/short credit strategies, several long-only mandates and a number of customized credit vehicles, in addition to a fast-growing CLO business.

Nathan Brown: We have been investing in three core sectors over the past 20 years, which has given us diversification. However, we’re constantly analysing the market trends within those sectors and shifting to where we see the most opportunity. Lately, we are focused on markets and business models that are high free cashflow and recession resistant.