The MCM Approach

Considering outside investment is a pivotal decision for any business owner. As the leader of your business, choosing the right investment partner is often stressful and critical to the future success of your company.

For three decades, MCM has successfully partnered with lower middle market businesses to support and accelerate growth creating opportunities for business owners and their employees. We drive growth by applying a unique and powerful approach, going far beyond a “deal” mindset to inject extensive market and technology insights, along with proven best practices in operations, finance and business development. For us, it’s about more than capital. Every transaction is built around a win-win-win priority that must be tailored to the unique particular needs of all three stakeholders – the business owner, the management team, and MCM. Creating alignment, fostering a strong corporate culture and sharing in a common vision allows businesses not only to grow but to thrive.

Our approach to investing focuses on driving organic growth while acknowledging success doesn’t happen overnight. It often takes a combination of time and thoughtful, strategic investments in people, process, infrastructure and technology. After three decades of investing in lower middle market businesses we have acquired hard earned experience and developed a complimentary skillset, for partnering with niche manufacturing and value added distribution companies.

We act as a growth catalyst by leveraging your company’s strengths and addressing its weaknesses.  In our experience, growth in many lower middle market businesses is often tempered by limited resources. Let us be your resource. Our team possesses a complimentary skillset for high value-added entrepreneurially managed companies looking for a partner to accelerate growth through business development, operating and finance expertise. Often, MCM partners with companies who excel operationally and technically, but do not have robust sales and marketing programs. Generally, they rely on word of mouth and supplier referrals to generate new opportunities. We can assist you in developing a systematic approach to increasing market awareness and penetration by leveraging your company’s unique capabilities to accelerate growth.

“MCM brought a holistic approach to growth. They took the time to understand where our gaps were and then worked with our team to build a sustainable foundation. MCM invested their time, allowed us to invest in human resources to strengthen our Engineering and Sales team and supported CAPEX needs for new growth. But the most important aspect of the MCM relationship is they brought value to the business by challenging our “status quo” leading to accelerated growth. I can tell you that MCM truly became a partner and helped us “rethink” how we deliver our value proposition in the market.”

Chris Lawson,
Chief Operating Officer and Shareholder, Performance Plastics

It may sound trite, but we believe a successful outcome begins and ends with great people. No one knows a company and its people as well as its leaders. Consequently, we believe it is essential that management continue to run the operations of the company on a post-transaction basis. We look to partner with talented management teams who share a common strategic vision and culture. As a firm, we accelerate growth in concert with management through a collaboration of creative ideas, a diversity of skills and speed of experimentation and execution. We blend our broad-based insights on product technology, financial/pricing models, operational improvements and marketing/channel sales strategies with your resident institutional product, technical and market knowledge to achieve our collective goals.

You’ve built a great organization with a unique culture and impressive product portfolio. While you continue to operate an already-successful company, we bring a respectful approach to the partnership building upon a solid foundation while upholding your company’s reputation, core values and culture. In fact, many of our portfolio companies come from shared values found in the manufacturing heartland of the country, where the importance of respect, hard work, humility, trust and entrepreneurial determination are well understood. Our methodology calls for us to function as a good steward of the business, working within your existing environment to foster organic growth. The new ideas we bring are meant to amplify and build upon your achievements, not to replace or re-direct them.

“While value was important to me, of greater importance was to preserve the integrity and culture of the company that all of us had spent our lifetimes building, and to ensure it was on a path of growth and success. MCM satisfied both of them in a big way.”

Mike Tiner
Chief Operating Officer and Shareholder, Andover Corporation