·
Demetrios Dounis, an MBA recipient from Chicago Booth, serves as a managing director with Heartwood Partners. In this role, Demetrios Dounis will continue to lead Heartwood's add-on acquisition investments.
Established in 1982, Heartwood Partners, a private equity organization, aims to provide support through capitalization to founders and owners of family and management-owned businesses who seek to enhance their business performance. While Heartwood maintains some degree of ownership with portfolio companies, the organization also provides affiliate management teams with deep operating experience and skills.
Unlike traditional buyout firms, Heartwood's conservative capitalization approach equips management teams with access to a higher-equity and lower-debt platform, where the development and implementation of growth plans are possible. Currently, the organization has about $1.1 billion in assets under management.
Although Heartwood seeks to work with companies within various industry sectors, certain characteristics are expected from potential portfolio investments. These include:
1. Portfolio companies should be private, family, or management-owned businesses headquartered in the United States.
2. Each company should hold a competitive position and should also demonstrate the ability to maintain or expand margin and customer concentration.
3. The company should have a revenue range of between $40 million to $400 million.
4. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) should be between $5 million and $25 million, with lower exceptions for add-on investments.
