Investment Criteria

Building businesses.

Ursataur Capital Management’s key investment criteria are:

Transaction size and structure

Ursataur seeks to deploy $5-15 million of its capital in each investment. We consider majority and minority investments and in each we employ transaction structures appropriate to the context, including appropriate governance provisions. In addition, we implement capital structures that enhance value creation, including prudent leverage where appropriate. If appropriate in the transaction context, we partner with select private equity firms and strategic investors.

Industry

We seek investments in industries that have historically (and are expected to prospectively) generate attractive returns on capital and where we see macroeconomic and industry tailwinds or the opportunity to capitalize on discontinuities. Ursataur evaluates industry attractiveness on several quantitative dimensions including growth, return on invested capital, competitive intensity, and margin evolution, and on qualitative trends that we expect to support or impair a business’ prospects.

Company

Ursataur invests in established businesses with significant upside potential within our investing horizon. We seek firms with a record of positive earnings, sustainable competitive advantage, and significant growth, margin or other upside-creation opportunities. We are particularly interested in investment opportunities that facilitate inter-generational business transfer, corporate carve-outs, and/or where one or more identifiable value creation catalysts are present.

Management

We invest in businesses that have strong management teams or where we have the ability to enhance the management team to fill specific gaps. In particular we look to support managers who have a thorough understanding of the key drivers of a business, its strengths and vulnerabilities and who are leaders of high integrity.

Ursataur value-add

We seek investments where Ursataur can add value through active ownership (for example, through strategic re-alignment, operational improvement, capital allocation, access to talent and customers, and governance). Ursataur’s principals have experience advising and investing in a broad spectrum of businesses and contexts and we look to leverage this experience in support of the operators of our portfolio companies.