Carlson Private Capital Partners (CPC) has formed its first committed investment platform and appointed Andrew Cantwell as President, CEO and Managing Partner.
CPC Partners builds on the successful legacy of its founders, the Carlson family, by leveraging the family’s experience, entrepreneurship and relationships. Through a committed investment platform, the firm will target businesses from USD5-USD50 million in EBITDA and equity investments from USD20 to USD100 million. CPC Partners will also consider larger investments and partnerships with other family investment firms.
Cantwell, formerly a Partner at Norwest Equity Partners, joins CPC Partners with a proven track record of exceptional middle-market investments and private capital leadership working with founder and family-owned businesses across a range of industries. He will build a team of investment professionals along with Taylor Moore, who will join CPC Partners as a Partner. Mr. Moore has built a successful and consistent investment track record with specific expertise in the consumer, distribution and agriculture sectors. CPC will be based in Minnetonka, Minn.
“The launch of Carlson Private Capital Partners represents an exciting new chapter in the Carlson family’s mission of growing businesses to be a source of opportunity, job creation, and a force for positive change,” says Diana Nelson, Carlson Chair. “Performance, integrity and service have been at the core of our culture since 1938. Carlson Private Capital Partners will build on those values to become an essential source of capital, relationships and expertise in partnering with growth-focused businesses across the region. I am confident that Andy and his team will bring a thoughtful approach to growing CPC according to the Carlson legacy of operational excellence.”
With a unique platform for partnering with growth-oriented management teams, CPC Partners will operate with the sophistication and speed of a best-in-class private equity fund along with a long-term orientation and flexible capital base of a family investment firm to meet the unique needs of each portfolio company. The platform’s core investment strategy will target select control, co-investment and minority positions in entrepreneurial or family-owned businesses with enterprise values up to USD500 million. CPC Partners will look to partner with companies with exceptional leadership teams and clear competitive advantages where the insight and resources of CPC’s investment team can enable management to accelerate the organisation’s growth.
“I am thrilled to partner with Taylor to lead Carlson Private Capital Partners as we build on the Carlson Family’s storied legacy of investing in, operating and growing businesses. We understand it takes time to build a great business and will look to partner with management teams that are best served by a patient, flexible firm that can truly focus on what is best for business in the long term,” says Cantwell. “We have an inherently different, and, we believe, better, alternative for business owners.
“Our vision is to combine the best elements of an effective private equity firm with the flexible capital solutions and relationship advantages of our founding investors, who are one of the most respected families in the American business landscape. We don’t face the pressure of short term liquidity and fund-raising cycles. Our focus, and most importantly, our management team’s focus, is on doing what we do best, and that’s growing businesses together. This unique and powerful combination will provide significant partnership advantages to our portfolio companies including a flexible investment horizon, focus on patient long-term value creation and a global relationship network to accelerate growth. Taylor and I would always say that ‘we hated having to sell our best companies’ during the normal investment cycle of a private equity fund and now we are not forced to.”
Moore says: “We will be building a team of talented investment professionals that have had success at premier private equity and investment firms but understand, first and foremost, this is a people business and integrity and relationships are what matter most.”
