Overview
The LLR Partners team has had long and successful careers advising and investing in growth companies. We are not managers – we rely on our management teams to run the day-to-day operations of our portfolio companies. Throughout the investment life cycle, we take a service-oriented approach and actively support the senior management in any way we can to enhance and create value.
Strategic Guidance
LLR Partners works closely with management teams to implement operating and strategic initiatives directed at increasing revenue and cash flow and thus creating incremental value. LLR Partners helps identify strategies to sustain and accelerate growth through market definition, customer segmentation, product or service extensions, strategic capital expenditures and add-on acquisitions. Through our experience, we support our companies with a combination of perspective, experience and insight.
Corporate Development
A number of LLR Partners' portfolio companies participate in industries in which organic growth can be supplemented with an aggressive buy and build strategy. LLR Partners often performs the corporate development function enabling management teams to focus on managing the core business. Corporate development skills include identifying merger/acquisition candidates, negotiating terms, performing due diligence, finalizing transaction documents and integration planning and execution.
Management Incentives
LLR Partners is directly involved in the development of compensation programs for senior managers. Cash and equity incentives are structured around financial objectives that drive business performance and increase equity value. Incentive compensation programs also further align the financial interests of management with those of LLR Partners.
Building and Strengthening Management Teams
Since effective leaders are critical to the success of an investment, LLR Partners continually assesses the capabilities of a portfolio company's management. As needed, LLR Partners recommends and facilitates, at the board level, the enhancement or replacement of senior managers. LLR Partners also assists portfolio companies in the executive recruiting process. Through its network of senior executives and its strong relationships with executive recruiting consultants, LLR Partners has successfully identified and recruited managers for key roles within portfolio companies, including Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers and Vice Presidents and Director-level roles in Sales, Marketing and Product Development.
Client and Partner Introductions
Averaging over 25 years in the Mid-Atlantic investment and professional services markets, each Partner has developed extensive relevant professional networks in the region, including value-added industry experts. LLR Partners spends considerable time accessing its network and making key introductions to portfolio companies. Such introductions include: (i) senior managers from leading corporations who operate in related industries; (ii) successful managers from previous LLR Partners investments; (iii) limited partners of LLR Partners, many of whom have built successful businesses; and (iv) consultants and other professional advisors.
Capitalizing the Company for Growth
LLR Partners utilizes its experience and investment acumen to develop the most effective capital structure to support growth and maximize equity value. Capital structures usually include a mix of preferred and common equity and senior debt, although by industry standards LLR Partners tends to significantly under leverage its investments, thereby providing greater financing capacity for growth.
Maximizing Value Upon Exit
LLR Partners typically holds investments for three to five years, or longer, before seeking liquidity, although that time frame may be altered based on opportunities that arise. As part of its pre-investment due diligence, LLR Partners carefully evaluates likely exit scenarios, including potential strategic buyers, the prospect of an initial public offering or the possibility of a future refinancing or recapitalization achieving an acceptable return. We formally review the status of the exit strategy on a quarterly basis. LLR Partners has demonstrated, both in Fund I and Fund II and in their prior advisory roles to clients, an ability to execute exits in a manner that maximizes returns, independent of the state of the financial markets.