Pretty standard story here - wife's family is from Cleveland and I see there's a lot of shops out there. Seems like a place to maybe settle down if the work was there.
Anyone have any recommendations? Looking to optimize culture more than comp.
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Riverside is obviously the big name in Cleveland and a respectable shop by national standards. There are likely a bunch of Riverside spinouts in the area as well but I’m less familiar with them (Align is a name I’ve heard has done well).
Thank you, this is good info
Poster above is correct with Riverside and Align. Adding on, there’s MPE Partners (Boston office too), CORE Industrial Partners (Chicago HQ with Cleveland office), Blue Point Capital Partners (Cleveland HQ).
There also are some smaller, random LMM funds around the city and suburbs but will not pay as well as the above.
Thanks - did not have CORE on my radar
Worked with the guys at Edgewater Capital Partners on a deal. The culture and people seemed great
x
I am a big fan of Edgewater. They are real experts in their niche and come off as very nice people.
Riverside - most respected name in the group; tons of different fund strategies now, flagship fund is known for paying up for top quality businesses, particularly those that are growth-oriented
MPE - pretty good track record in industrials, have heard mixed reviews on how they behave (some sketchy stories), but culture seems decent
Capitalworks/CW Industrial - Industrial bottom feeders, like hairier businesses, are a bit awkward and not as easy to converse with, decent track record
Align - best people of the bunch; great culture, compete for good businesses on the smaller end, but grow aggressively via M&A and organic, great record thus far; would dig at how much focus is CLE vs. DAL these days
Blue Point - generally pretty good people, few different industry strategies; good, not great success, but a good place to be
Edgewater - really sharp in the verticals they target, go quite deep and have a great reputation and track record; good culture, people seem happy and collegial
MCM - some nice guys, some awkward guys; decent track record, IIRC they are an SBIC fund, but have done well in some pockets with industrial and A&D investments
Rockwood - decent people and culture, really value-oriented, hard to see how they are going to be able to keep deploying enough capital, even though the fund is small
Kirtland - been around for a while, also quite value-focused, decent people, like sleepy Midwest businesses
Cyprium - HQ'd in CLE, non-control equity and mezz fund that invests larger checks; overall good culture, good people, good track record
Wow, this is awesome detail. Thank you for taking the time to write all this out!
Can also add PNC Erieview’s mezz fund in Cleveland if you’re not focused solely on control buyout. $750mm latest fund all from PNC’s balance sheet. Seem like good people but low comp for the fund size
do you mind expanding on the low comp? Looking to move to PE in Cle & want to get as many data points as possible.
The people / culture at Cyprium seems really bizarre from what I’ve heard. Had some interactions with active partners who immediately started trashing the founder and laughing about how he used to grope and harass the old secretary. But excused it cause that’s just how he is… Kind of sounded like Joe Biden vibes sniffing girls hair. Two of the three active partners are known as being super unlikable and abrasive.
Primus is a great LMM shop that is active in software
Thanks - hadn't picked them up in my searching
I know several people who worked at Cyprium and would avoid. They have an old guard of partners who are not active in the business and don't even live in cleveland but are milking the firm's economics. New guard of partners are struggling to raise a new fund. They've been trying to raise a smaller fund for 2-3 years at this point. Apparently they're slowly converting to SBIC since they can't raise. They had close to 100% turnover of junior talent last year.
I've heard quite the opposite, as I know multiple people who are there right now. From what I've gathered, they have been quite active investing out of two recently raised funds at the moment, the latest flagship fund and an SBIC fund. If anything, it sounds like it's opened up the funnel to look at both larger and smaller deals at the same time. I can't speak to the turnover of junior talent but generally speaking I find stats like these misleading when the sample size at these types of firms is oftentimes 2-3 folks.
Cyprium failed to raise another flagship fund over the last few years. Raised ~$100mm after prior funds were $500mm. Obviously very concerning when you can’t hit your prior fund level. More concerning when you’re not getting re-ups from existing LPs. They moved into the SBIC fund as they were failing to raise their flagship fund. They market that they’ve raised ~$200mm in their SBIC but that’s counting 2:1 leverage provided by the SBA so really ~$60-70mm raised. They’re way too top heavy for these economics to go around. Hence all the junior turnover. Good job for someone from Cleveland state to get into PE but not so much for others.
Have heard great things about MPE. Strong returns, sharp team, good culture.
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