Richard McGuire

Owns and operates bookstores and music stores

Provides digital commerce solutions for retail stores and restaurants

Owns, operates and franchises a restaurant chain

Functions as hedge fund

Provides technology solutions to the gaming market

Stonington Partners (SP) focuses on the investment of equity capital in corporate acquisitions. The firm seeks to identify attractive investments in middle-market companies with valuations of $50 million to $500 million. They typically invest $25 million to $150 million per company either at the initial acquisition or over time through add-on investments. While receptive to opportunities in all industries, SP targets sectors in which they have proven expertise including: automotive/transportation, building products, business services, financial services, distribution, education, life sciences, medical products, media, manufacturing, retail, software and telecommunications.

Pershing Square Capital Management is a concentrated, research-intensive, fundamental value investor in the public markets. Their funds’ investment objectives are to preserve capital and to seek maximum, long-term capital appreciation commensurate with reasonable risk. The firm defines risk as the probability of a permanent loss of capital, rather than price volatility. In their value approach to investing, Pershing Square seeks to identify and invest in long and short investment opportunities they believe exhibit significant valuation discrepancies between current trading prices and intrinsic business (or net asset) value, often with a catalyst for value recognition. They focus on deeply undervalued or overvalued securities due to their belief that a well-priced purchase or short sale is often the most important determinant of the success of an investment. In addition, Pershing Square believes that the acquisition of a portfolio of investments, when acquired at a large discount to intrinsic value, provides a margin of safety that can mitigate the likelihood of an overall permanent loss of each fund’s capital. Pershing Square is an activist firm and is included in the SharkWatch50 as one the 50 most prominent activist investors.

Functions as a College/University

J. H. Whitney Investment Management seeks high absolute risk-adjusted returns in a few highly-specialized investment strategies in the public markets. The firm focuses on Asian markets, global commodity and macro markets, the US equity volatility complex and US small-cap deep value equities. J.H. Whitney offers single manager, single strategy investment alternatives, multi-manager regional-focused funds, multi-manager sector-focused funds and a multi-manager, multi-strategy fund of funds. Though not limited by sector, the firm tends to invest in the stocks of companies in the producer manufacturing, process industries, healthcare technology and finance sector. Their Pan Asia Strategy is a multi-strategy focused on Asia Pacific investments. They focus on market inefficiencies and the ability to add value through a disciplined investment process. They invest in 20-30 of the region's premier managers across the strategy spectrum. J.H. Whitney seeks to produce high risk adjusted returns, protect capital in difficult market environments and participate in upside when available. J.H. Whitney's US Long/Short Small-Cap strategy is a concentrated US long/short small-cap fund with a long-term investment focus. They seek to take advantage of public market investment ideas identified through private equity activities that J.H. Whitney was previously unable to pursue. They focus on capitalizing on inefficiencies in the small- and micro-cap segments of the public markets. Their Japanese Long Only strategy is value-orientated to take advantage of the dramatic compression of multiples. The portfolio is not limited to smaller companies; however, J.H. Whitney has identified approximately 50-75 opportunities in the small- and mid-cap space where current price levels are compelling. They have also selected some larger companies that meet their criteria. Although they look at value, they do not expect to focus narrowly on traditional deep value stocks. The firm's Japanese Long/Short strategy seeks to take advantage of inefficiencies and opportunities that exist in a liquid/developed equity market. They employ fundamentally driven stock selection, taking into consideration net investment flows. The strategy employs technical and quantitative tools as an overlay. The portfolio is focused on risk/return, with an emphasis on liquidity and diversification and seeks to generate consistent, non-correlated and risk-adjusted returns. J.H. Whitney's Asian Healthcare Long/Short strategy seeks to take advantage of favorable demographics during rapid technological advances in stocks across sub-sectors and markets. The approach is fundamentally driven and seeks to capitalize on Westernization trends and rising standards of living across the region.