BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH MANAGEMENT

All of FdG’s principals have senior managerial experience. We draw upon this experience to understand the challenges our portfolio companies face when managing people and organizations through all aspects of the business cycle. Our goal as partners is not to run the businesses we invest in, but to be extremely active as directors, working collaboratively with management to solve strategic problems and identify and pursue opportunities. From managing executive searches to selecting legal, accounting or specialized business advisors, FdG helps companies access a variety of valuable resources to assist them in realizing their full potential.

The single most important factor in our evaluation of an investment opportunity is the quality and motivation of management. To achieve and maintain market leadership over the long term, we find it essential that a company have a strong management team with a proven record of success. Management should demonstrate a clear vision for sustaining or enhancing growth and profitability and a willingness to entertain new ideas. As a key component of our partnership approach, FdG expects management to personally invest in their company. In addition, we offer generous incentive programs that provide the opportunity for significant incremental equity ownership. FdG will not invest in a company unless we can establish a partnership with management based on a mutually comfortable working and financial relationship.

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"About a year after FdG partnered with our management team to buy our company, a combination of a decline in agricultural commodity prices and an extremely aggressive competitor forced our company to take a fresh look at our historical business practices.

"Working with our senior management team, FdG introduced planning concepts and methods from other industries and businesses, and they helped us redesign our budgeting and strategic planning process. In particular, FdG helped us implement brainstorming sessions and best practice sharing across divisions, and they helped us improve our tools for benchmarking. In addition, they worked with us to revise our incentive plans to refocus our managers on the objectives that came out of our strategic planning. These cooperative efforts resulted in a significant improvement in operating efficiencies and plant productivity, which led to a major reduction in operating costs."

David Evans

President and CEO, CBP Resources, Inc.