Investing in your company's future

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We look for profitable, industry-leading businesses in the US and Canada that desire a flexible and committed partner who can help support the business with capital and resources for growth.

Our focus is to support you.

We are passionate about working with family and founder-owned businesses. Our team members have experience in traditional private equity environments but deliberately choose to eschew institutional private equity for what we truly believe is a better long-term solution for founders and families. Additionally, we see ourselves as investors and facilitators, not operators. We believe you know more about your business than we’ll ever know — our role is to be a resource to complement your management team so that your people and your business continue to thrive and accelerate growth through access to our network and ideas.

Revenue Target$50-500 million
EBITDA target$8-40+ million
Equity capital investment target$20-100 million

Primary industries:
We believe that great businesses exist in every industry. We have deep expertise and a long track record investing in industrial, consumer, distribution, and business services companies as well as perspectives in healthcare and financial services.

Business attributes:
We specialize in family and founder-led businesses looking to bring on an outside investor; quite often for the first time. We also work with management teams looking to transition from private equity ownership to a longer-term investor or an experienced management team looking to acquire businesses in their legacies industries of expertise.

Case in point: Lakeshirts/Blue 84

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The Lakeshirts story started more than 40 years ago with two teenage entrepreneurs. Mark Fritz and Mike Hutchinson began printing t-shirts in their basement to sell during the summer on the mile-long beach of Detroit Lakes, MN. Today, Lakeshirts employs nearly 1,000 team members and serves more than 5,000 resort town retailers and 2,000 college bookstores and retailers and many happy customers. Check your closet, you probably have some of their merchandise. What started in a basement next to the lake has grown to a 300,000-square-foot, vertically integrated manufacturing and distribution facility in Detroit Lakes, MN, a nearly 110,000-square-foot facility in Little Falls, MN, a 25,000-square-foot facility in Los Angeles, CA and a 50,000-square-foot facility in Longmont, CO. Lakeshirts has partnered with CPC to develop a long-term plan to grow its business while staying true to the Minnesota values that have taken it so far.

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“We have been fortunate to build an exceptional business in our hometown through commitment to our people and our community and wanted to find a partner who shared our values. Carlson Private Capital’s investment will help us accelerate our business’ growth and, more importantly, allow for growth in jobs and continued support of Detroit Lakes.”

— Mark Fritz, Co-CEO of Lakeshirts / Blue 84

Learn more about us.

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