ValorBridge Partners: Efficient Long-Term Capital for the Middle Market

We are hearing that businesses and their owners (from large cap corporates to family founders) are seeking quieter, less-public solutions to achieve their time-sensitive capital needs and objectives. Mazzone has worked with ValorBridge Partners for almost a decade and is ready, able and willing to help middle market business meet those needs and objectives. 

ValorBridge is a long-term investor with over $500 million in assets and significant liquidity across diverse industries. Among its current portfolio of companies are:

• ApolloMD, a healthcare service provider focused on hospital emergency rooms;

• Crown Asset Management, a financial services business; and

• Guardian Fueling Technologies, a provider of turnkey solutions for the fuel distribution industry. 

ValorBridge has invested everywhere on the balance sheet from senior debt to mezzanine debt to equity. We focus on the right capital for the business to success and grow, then price the capital to align management with ValorBridge to deliver returns for both as management meets its goals and objectives. All ValorBridge companies are protected with barriers to entry for competitors and have strong management teams.

Please reach out if you are seeking liquidity or structured solutions for debt or equity positions and wish to transact directly and discreetly with an agile, no-nonsense long-term investor. We take great pride in our reputation for speed and certainty despite the current environment, just as we did during the Great Recession.

No one can accurately predict what lies ahead, but we feel the ultimate winners that will emerge from this are the companies and investors that shift the paradigm to prioritize: liquidity, adequate capital bases, and reasonable debt profiles. These three things, along with operational resources that provide some sort of path back to normalcy, will allow us as a nation to successfully emerge through this crisis. ValorBridge and Mazzone intend to lead the way for middle market companies trying to navigate the current storm. 

With this unprecedented crisis, much is required of us as a society to address the risks of COVID-19.  We must all work together as we traverse through this situation. Please take care and let us all do our part to limit the spread of COVID-19.  

Dom Mazzone
Managing Director

Important Update from Mazzone on COVID-19

No one can accurately predict what lies ahead, but we feel the ultimate winners that will emerge from this are the companies and investors that shift the paradigm to prioritize: liquidity, adequate capital bases, and reasonable debt profiles. These three things, along with operational resources that provide some sort of path back to normalcy, will allow us as a nation to successfully emerge through this crisis.
 
We are hearing that businesses and their owners (from large cap corporates to family founders) are seeking quieter, less-public solutions to achieve their time-sensitive capital needs and objectives. Mazzone is ready, able and willing to help middle market business meet those needs and objectives. 

Please reach out if you are close to stakeholders (large or small) that are seeking liquidity or structured solutions for their debt or equity positions and wish to transact directly and discreetly with an agile, no-nonsense counterparty. We represent several family offices and work with several institutional investors with significant dry powder to invest in private credit and/or equity investments. We take great pride in our reputation for speed and certainty despite the current environment, just as we did during the Great Recession.

Mazzone & Associates is focusing on the health and well-being of our employees. Our firm continues to operate daily and seeks to be vigilant in the education and safety of our team while ensuring the continuity of business operations. This includes working remotely for all employees, as well as stressing the importance of social distancing outside of the firm to slow the spread of COVID-19.  The Mazzone team is working very diligently through this crisis and is focused on the implications for all our stakeholders, while trying to help those most in need.

With this unprecedented crisis, much is required of us as a society to address the risks of COVID-19. Our employees are our biggest investment, and their safety, health, and wellness is our top priority. We must all work together as we traverse through this situation. Please take care and let us all do our part to limit the spread of COVID-19.  

Dom Mazzone
Managing Director

Mazzone & Associates Advises R. Lee & Associates and Blue Point Capital Partners on the Acquisition of Country Pure Foods

Mazzone & Associates (“Mazzone”) is pleased to announce that it acted as the exclusive financial advisor to R. Lee & Associates and Blue Point Capital Partners (“Blue Point”) with respect to the acquisition of Country Pure Foods, Inc. (“Country Pure” or the “Company”).

Raymond (“Ray”) Lee, Managing Member of R. Lee & Associates, formerly served in a number of leadership roles at Country Pure, including CEO. He will return to serve as CEO of the Company post-closing, bringing a wealth of executive and industry experience. Reflecting on the transaction, Ray Lee noted, “I’m eager to build on the Company’s outstanding reputation while developing new opportunities to increase product consumption. Mazzone & Associates provided excellent guidance and advice as we navigated the complexities of the transaction process.”

John LeMay, a Partner with Blue Point commented, “We are thrilled to partner with Ray and the management team to grow an already clear leader in the better-for-you beverage space. Mazzone proved to be an invaluable advisor throughout the deal.”

Maury Bell, Managing Director at Mazzone & Associates, noted, “Country Pure is a market leader in its category and Ray Lee is a world class operator. We were honored to assist him and the Blue Point team with the transaction.”

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Country Pure Foods, Inc. is a leading provider of branded and private label beverage products to healthcare and education markets as well to leading grocery retailers. For over seventy years, Country Pure has been a value-added producer, processer, packager, and distributor of both branded and private label beverages and juice products to the food service, retail, and co-pack end markets. The Company sells its products directly to retailers and through institutional food service distributors into the healthcare and education markets. Based in Akron, OH and with five plants across the U.S., Country Pure has a large geographic footprint to service its diverse portfolio of customers.

Blue Point Capital Partners is a private equity firm managing over $1.5 billion in committed capital.  With offices in Cleveland, Charlotte, Seattle and Shanghai, Blue Point's geographical footprint allows it to establish relationships with local and regional entrepreneurs and advisors, while providing the resources of a global organization.  The Blue Point partner group has a 21-year track record of partnering with companies in the lower middle-market to facilitate growth and transformative change.  It is one of only a few middle market private equity firms with a presence in both the United States and Asia, which provides a distinct advantage for its portfolio companies.  Blue Point typically invests in businesses that generate between $20 million and $300 million in revenue.

Mazzone & Associates Advises H&W Printing, Inc. on its sale to Crown Capital Investments

Crown Capital Investments (“CCI”), a private family office investment firm, has announced its acquisition of H&W Printing, Inc. (“H&W” or the “Company”), a Marietta, Georgia-based provider of full-service marketing solutions.

Mazzone & Associates, as the exclusive financial advisor to H&W, conducted a tailored marketing process to identify prospective buyers that were uniquely suited to partner with management in generating additional growth and success as the Company transitions into new ownership.

Sarah Gossett, President of H&W, opined, “H&W is infused with an entrepreneurial spirit that has propelled us from our humble 1996 print shop beginning to today’s corporate brand projector and marketing production powerhouse operating 24/7.” Ms. Gossett expressed her satisfaction with the transaction when she reflected, “We’re excited to be associated with Crown Capital. They were a natural choice for a management partner to enhance our growth and optimize performance in the corporate marketing support space. Mazzone & Associates worked efficiently and expeditiously to lead the transaction to a close by year-end.”

“H&W is a great company and our families are thrilled with the acquisition,” said Christopher Graham, CEO of CCI. “We focus on investing in well-established, market-leading companies and helping them optimize operations, innovate, and grow. The brand, the plant, technology capabilities, and the management team all demonstrate the high-performance attributes we seek within our portfolio companies.”

Jonathan White, Managing Director at Mazzone & Associates, highlighted, "For over 20 years, H&W has been a flagship example of business innovation and adaptability. We fully anticipate that the tenacity, savvy, and industry expertise of Ms. Gossett's management team, coupled with CCI's established history of successfully vitalizing and streamlining business operations, will facilitate H&W's emergence as a national powerhouse in the corporate brand marketing space."

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H&W Printing is a Marietta, Georgia-based provider of innovative, full-service marketing solutions. Since its founding in 1996, the Company has fully integrated its service portfolio to become a true one-stop provider of digital and physical marketing solutions, serving an array of Fortune 500 customers across a variety of end markets.