re: Getting Past the Gate: Capital Introduction at Prime Brokerage Firms

Looks like it was from Tuesday: LINK.

It illustrates a few moves at the smaller end of the private equity sector that we had been talking about not too long ago, with Bushnell's acquisition of Primos Hunting: "In 2012, with 140 employees and revenues approaching $60 million, Will Primos sold his company to Bushnell Outdoor Products."

Apparently MidOcean Partners was the private equity firm that handled the deal: LINK.

And then Bushnell went and got itself acquired by Alliant Techsystems in September for $985 million: LINK.

And, yeah, the Q&A section does illustrate the more general point about how being introduced to more institutional forms of capital (such as from a Morgan Stanley or a Merrill Lynch) can lead to much more efficient ways to raise money...

quote:

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Q: How about financially?

A: I had about $1 million in sales in 1989, but wasn’t making money. I grew debt like crazy because I kept seeing opportunity, buying equipment and building facilities. My growth rate was over 25 percent a year, 100 percent in 1995, but you can grow yourself into bankruptcy. Sometimes you have to hold back. By 1999, I owed the bank $13 million and went back for a $10 million line of credit. I got debt free by sacrificing.

Q: What was your best business decision?

A: Moving our borrowing to Merrill Lynch where money was much cheaper than bank loans.

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