Features
More than money
How to build a relationship with a private equity firm
By Brooke Bates
Smart Business Cleveland | January 2009
Page 1 of 5
Bill Fink founder, president and CEO, Area Wide Protective Inc.
If Bill Fink’s company tried online dating, it still might not find a suitable mate.
Area Wide Protective Inc. hits a niche that not many companies share: providing temporary traffic control services, like roadblocks and traffic flaggers, for public utility companies. So finding a similar company for a strategic acquisition would be tough. Not only would it have to match business interests, but it would also have to match management philosophies, staffs and cultures.
“Think of the two most finicky people that have ever used eHarmony.com,” says Fink, founder, president and CEO of AWP.
But Fink realized that his company, which posted 2007 revenue of $27.1 million, couldn’t stay single, either. He told his 650 employees: “We’ve all invested a lot in growing this company. It should not hinge on one man’s health or one man’s wallet. It’s important that we build a foundation that will sustain the company after Bill Fink is gone.”
With a strategic acquisition out of the question, Fink instead sought a partnership with a private equity firm. That way, he could unload some financial stress without relinquishing his post.
And even though retirement is not on the 57-year-old’s short-term agenda, the partnership is also helping him secure the company’s future.
“Nothing has changed in terms of dayto-day,” Fink says, after finalizing the deal last August with Blue Point Capital Partners. “What has changed is our vista; our horizons have just grown immeasur-ably. We can think about growing this company in ways that probably weren’t possible before.”
Here’s how Fink secured AWP’s long-term success by bringing financial partners on board without changing his course.
