What People Say

Subsidiary of a Foreign Conglomerate

"By limiting foreign ownership of fishing vessels to 25%, the American Fisheries Act of 1998 was forcing Aker ASA, a Norwegian conglomerate, to divest the majority of its interest in American Seafoods prior to October 2001. The Act included several other key provisions which rationalized the U.S. Pollock fishery industry and put American Seafoods in a better competitive position. In January of 2000, I decided to team up with Centre Partners to buy the company. Virtually overnight, American Seafoods was transformed from a foreign conglomerate-owned enterprise into an American company with significant ownership from its management and key Native Alaskan business partners. Six years later, Centre sold its remaining stake in the company to management and Coastal Villages, the larger of our two Native Alaskan business partners, allowing me to increase my personal holding to 40%. Now management owns approximately 51% of the company and our two Native Alaskan business partners the remaining 49%. To get there, Centre engineered two dividend recapitalizations along the way and sold half of its stake to Coastal Villages and me back in 2002, creating tremendous value for all the shareholders. Centre has been a terrific partner, always delivering on their promises. Centre helped me realize my dream; I am now captain of my own ship."

Subsidiary of a Publicly Traded Corporation

"In 2003, ConAgra decided to divest Bumble Bee Seafoods, which it had acquired as a part of its 2000 acquisition of International Home Foods. My team and I viewed this as an opportunity to gain our independence and become material owners of the business we managed with the help of the right equity partner. Centre recognized that the company had been non-core and hence under-supported by its prior owner. Centre shared our vision that significant opportunities existed to improve profitability and free cash flow through better management of working capital, shedding non-core assets, reducing fixed costs, and stimulating sales through innovative new product introductions, a category growth campaign, and pursuit of complementary acquisitions. Centre was an extremely supportive partner as we transitioned Bumble Bee from a corporate subsidiary to a strong independent enterprise and ultimately into North America’s largest branded seafood company with the combination of Bumble Bee and Connors Bros."

Management Investment Partnership

"After having led two successful investments in the kidney dialysis service sector, I chose to partner with Centre Partners in 2005, primarily based on our chemistry together, their dedication to flexibility with their partners and their commitment to health care. We started off with just a few management contracts and a white paper concept for a breast cancer treatment facility. One year into our partnership we found ourselves, after a large acquisition, as the third largest dialysis treatment chain in the US and the owner/operator of the world’s first comprehensive breast cancer treatment center. Having made a commitment to specialty health care and to our management team as partners, Centre was flexible enough to be able to adjust its strategic and funding vision to synchronize with the multitude of health care service opportunities extant in the market today. I have never worked with investors so willing to listen, support and participate in the building of an enterprise."

Going Private Transaction

"Partnering with Centre enabled our management team to realize its goal of taking Garden Fresh private alongside an experienced investment group who shared our vision for the future of our business. The transaction that Centre structured enabled us to deliver an attractive premium to our public shareholders while unshackling us from the quarterly financial reporting constraints of a public marketplace that prevented us from managing our business for the long term. While Centre demonstrated tremendous innovation in structuring the original transaction, they provided even greater value following closing. Centre helped refine our business plan and provided us with a number of actionable strategies to increase our profitability and growth potential that were fundamental to the significant financial and operating improvements we achieved. Our partnership with Centre transformed the opportunities available to Garden Fresh as a company and paved the way for us to realize our sizeable ambitions for the business"

Platform for Growth Through Acquisitions

"Gray Wireline was founded in 1983 by Steve Gray and operated two locations in the Permian Basin region of West Texas until 2004, when David Otte (our current VP of Business Development) and I acquired an ownership stake in the Company and initiated a rapid growth strategy. Two years later, although we had achieved a substantial and highly profitable expansion of our business operations, we felt that we needed an equity partner who would share our vision and fund the next stage of our growth strategy. Centre viewed this as an opportunity to partner with proven industry veterans and use Gray as a platform to build an industry leader. We found in Centre and their affiliate Centre Southwest Partners a significant capital partner with strategic business insight and a true understanding of the energy sector. They stood ready to invest additional capital to help support and accelerate our growth and assisted us in gaining access to sources of debt capital previously unavailable to us. We completed three acquisitions within the first six months of Centre’s original investment. Gray is now the largest independent onshore wireline company in the U.S., with 15 district locations and over 75 units (up from 40 units at closing). Centre has been extremely supportive and responsive; I couldn’t dream of a better partner."

Funding a Strategy of Consolidation to Completion

"When we met Centre in 1997, we were looking for an equity partner that could support our strategy of consolidating the private label segment of the North American bleach and household cleaning products industry. Our vision was to offer national and large regional customers single point sourcing, consistent and innovative packaging, national brand-equivalent quality across multiple SKUs, and better pricing than that offered by regional suppliers. From our network of 8 manufacturing plants (5 owned and 3 co-packing relationships) in early 1997, we realized that we could improve margins and product quality by aggressively acquiring regional private label bleach manufacturers in an effort to create economies of scale. Centre quickly understood our vision and was creative in structuring an investment that enabled us to maintain a significant ownership stake while providing us with substantial capital to execute our plan. With the help of Centre’s financing and acquisition expertise, we successfully executed on this strategy by completing five acquisitions over the next 5 years thereby dramatically expanding our manufacturing footprint and distribution capabilities and enabling us to create a dominant market position within our categories. Through the success of our consolidation strategy, we were able to grow sales and EBITDA from $41 million and nearly break-even levels in 1996 to $198 million and $36 million in 2002, enabling us to take the company public via an income fund in 2002 which resulted in a terrific outcome for all shareholders."

Private Family Owned Business

"Upon graduating from college in 1963, I joined Quickie Manufacturing which was founded by my father and my uncle in 1919. When I became president in 1971, I had the vision that the future of Quickie hinged upon two things; continued product innovation coupled with a drastic shift in our distribution channels. Immediately, we exited our traditional department store channel and focused our business strategy on supermarkets, mass merchandisers, home centers, and drug chains. Thanks to a very strong team, we are now the number one producer and marketer of cleaning tools in North America. In 2004, I decided it was time for me to find a successor who would take Quickie to the next stage of its success. Although I wanted to step back, I did not want to step out. Because I believed Quickie still had a bright future, I wanted to be part of it. Again, thirty three years later, I followed my instinct and set out to find the best partner rather than auction my family’s company to the highest bidder. When I met the folks at Centre Partners, we saw eye to eye right away. They brought in one of their operating partners (who later became our CEO) who had a vast experience in the consumer goods space and who immediately shared my vision for the future. They further tapped into their network and brought on the board two additional operating partners with consumer packaged goods and mass market retailing backgrounds. Finally, they structured a financing which allowed for a large reinvestment by my family and me to achieve my estate planning goals. When you have a successful business, capital is easy to come by but creative value-added partners like Centre are not."