The characteristics of private equity investment — a wide range of target industries, interdisciplinary business challenges, and a short time-frame for analysis — provide a challenge that aligns well with Dean & Company's unique value proposition. We analyze unfamiliar industries without preconceptions, and rigorously evaluate each potential investment based on in-depth researchand analysis. Our generalist approach gives us the ability to apply knowledge and skills from one industry to other seemingly unrelated ones (e.g., airline deregulation to utility deregulation).
The cornerstone of the Dean & Company Private Equity practice is an exclusive strategic partnership with Lindsay Goldberg. Since 1998, we have worked with the Lindsay Goldberg management team to evaluate investment targets and with the Lindsay Goldberg portfolio companies to implement strategic initiatives and operational improvement opportunities. We also will occasionally work with other private equity/venture capital funds when there is no potential conflict with Lindsay Goldberg.
We work closely with the client to analyze the target's strategic, operational, financial, and managerial strengths and weaknesses, in order to identify and quantify the company outlook and key upsides and downsides. We believe it is critical to quickly generate a very thorough understanding of the target's business landscape, and, as, such, our due diligence approach is extremely hands-on and detailed. In addition to publicly available and target-provided data, we exhaustively investigate key investment issues via market research surveys, discussions with current/prospective customers, industry experts, and competitors, etc.
At the heart of the due diligence effort is typically a detailed business model that analyzes and projects the key inputs driving profitability (market growth, customer growth, individual cost components etc.). We analyze historical performance and assess future trends to build a bottom-up, driver-based business model.
In addition to working with the client during the detailed due diligence process, Dean & Company will often team with portfolio companies to capture the value creation opportunities identified during due diligence. We have demonstrated a strong ability to help portfolio companies realize the identified growth and operational improvement opportunities.
