Investors have many options in the realm of alternative investments.  The Equitium Group’s approach to investing is differentiated and positioned to outperform. The main elements that differentiate us are our Active Ownership approach and our target selection criteria.

Active Ownership Investing
In today’s competitive private equity market it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve high returns simply through the traditional levers of aggressive negotiation, intensive cost-cutting, and financial restructuring. True value and superior results are obtained by thoroughly rethinking strategy and operations and by effectively driving implementation.

The Equitium Group’s Active Ownership approach to investing stems from our passion for making businesses stronger by building or fixing them from the ground up. The two components of the approach are hands-on involvement and superior talent.

Hands-on involvement.  Upon any acquisition, the Equitium team is on the ground full-time, working closely with management and assisting with strategy and operations as needed. Our hands-on involvement leads to true value creation and greater control over the investment, while minimizing risk. This approach stands in stark contrast to the typical private equity firm’s arms-length involvement (e.g., weekly phone calls with the CEO and quarterly board meeting attendance) and participation in value extraction (e.g., excessive cost cutting and leverage-funded dividends that actually hurt the business in the long run).

Our formula can be summed up:

Passion for building and growing businesses
+
Balanced value realization
=
Superior investment results

Superior Talent. Equitium’s superior talent comes from the quality of its core team, partnerships with top creative agencies, and a network of world-class executives. The core team is comprised of top management consulting and banking professionals, and forms the backbone of the approach. Additionally, partnerships with top advertising, innovation and branding firms are in place, and are available as needed to help shape the investment’s product line or image. Finally, a broad network of connections with leading world-class companies and talent can help accelerate recruiting and create immediate business opportunities.

We believe such resources, applied to a small- to medium-size company that could otherwise not obtain such support and access, have the potential to create a disproportionate advantage in the market and significant value for investors.

Target Selection Criteria
Equitium’s target selection criteria are differentiated on three fronts, all of which position it uniquely, and favorably, in the market:

1. A focus on smaller ($10 to $50 million in revenues) companies. While not without competition, this focus increases the chances of finding unique, proprietary investments, and stays below the brunt of the bidding wars occurring for larger companies, which drive up valuations and inevitably decrease returns.
   
   
2. A willingness to work with underperforming companies, which increases the range of target companies beyond what most private equity firms would consider.
   
   
3. A focus on inherently high margin and growth industries, which is a strong platform for business building.