Partner With Us

For Investors

Saratoga has a successful 25-year track record and reputation, with deep experience across multiple economic, market and interest rate cycles. In today’s environment, Saratoga finds itself better positioned than ever to deliver the outstanding returns that have made it a top quartile performer. A hallmark of Saratoga’s investment style has always been the ability to structure investments in capital-constrained environments, often through multiple-step transactions which can originate from failed financings, distressed sales, and bankruptcies. While leverage can be used, as available, to enhance returns, Saratoga has structured and closed many successful transactions without the use of new debt capital. We’ve always considered ourselves buyout investors with the ability to successfully navigate “special situations,” but, today more than ever, we find that most new opportunities have elements of distress and require our type of creativity to develop a solution. At the core, our investment approach and criteria haven’t changed – we still seek to back strong management to address niche market opportunities – but the avenues into these transactions have.

For Intermediaries

Saratoga Partners is a middle market private equity firm that generally invests in partnership with management across the industrial manufacturing, business service and information service sectors. We are the sole or lead investor in our deals, typically with control. Our targets tend to be US-headquartered, and we seek companies transaction sizes are generally in the enterprise value range of $50 million to $400 million, with EBITDA ranging from $5 million to $40 million. Our equity contributions generally range from $5 million on the low end up to $40 million and above, with co-investment from our limited partners. Like many investors, we are seeking leading companies in their industries with strong management teams, excellent cash flow characteristics and competitive advantages created by differentiated products or services or unique business models. However, our unique capabilities enable us to pursue and develop these transactions in many different ways:

Special Situations We routinely consider opportunities where there may be incomplete information, timing pressure, potential liabilities or divergent viewpoints on the future. We are always willing to spend the time to understand “story” transactions and work together to tailor a solution.
Creativity Perhaps due to the client-service culture we inherited from Dillon Read, Saratoga works to develop multiple ways to structure a transaction if we have conviction about an opportunity. Our problem-solving approach aims to remove capital as the biggest constraint in getting a deal done.
Supporting Growth Saratoga has a long and distinguished history in working with management to grow their businesses through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions. While we believe it is important to start with a strong platform in place, we are open to entertaining small, initial investments when the opportunity to put more capital to work is great.
Responsiveness Intermediaries will always get a quick “yes” or “no” response from Saratoga regarding our interest level in pursuing a transaction. In those cases when the answer is “maybe,” Saratoga is forthright and open about the issues it sees and always willing to propose alternative approaches around them.

For Management Teams

For twenty-five years, Saratoga Partners primary focus has been to identify and partner with exceptional management teams in growing their businesses. As long-term investors, Saratoga is patient and prepared to work with management to achieve significant long-term value appreciation. Saratoga believes that investing alongside a strong management team with substantial, and aligned, financial incentives is one of the most important factors in making successful investments. For that reason, Saratoga has had a particularly long and successful track record in working with founders to guide the businesses they started through the next phase of growth.

Partnership with Management Our first priority is to partner with high-quality, experienced management teams. While we work closely with our management teams, we are not operators. We consider ourselves their merchant banking partner, providing strategic, financial and operating guidance in our targeted areas of focus. Through our industry experience and network of relationships, we can share our own knowledge while providing access to potential advisors and board members.
Building Businesses Saratoga has always worked with entrepreneurs to identify mutual objectives around an investment and work to achieve them. We are strong believers in investing for disciplined growth and are willing to support management plans with additional capital beyond the original investment.
Alignment of interests Equity incentives are a critical factor in aligning the interests of our portfolio company management teams with ours, and we believe in working together to achieve a common goal.
Commitment and Focus Saratoga limits its investments to a relatively small number of portfolio companies in each fund, allowing us to focus closely on each company, providing each investment with significant attention and oversight. Likewise, as a small firm, Saratoga does not have separate origination, execution and oversight staffing; there is continuity in the relationship across the entire investment life cycle.

For Debt Capital Providers

Saratoga has been working with its network of senior and junior capital providers to explore collaborative ways to solve some of the challenges they face in their existing loan portfolios. Through partnering to analyze difficult situations in a portfolio, we can work to improve investment outcomes by providing new capital and direction. This approach can lead to a wide variety of transaction types, from structured, preferred equity investments to working with management to sponsor plans for reorganizations, both in or – preferably – out of court. For our financial partners, there are some strong associated benefits to this approach:

Better recoveries on existing positions Through a new equity investment, we can help realign balance sheets and reposition fundamentally sound companies to address their business plans. In the case of our Advanced Lighting investment, the existing debt was reinstated at par.
Opportunities for new and co-investment These restructured deals may require new senior and junior debt capital to replace the existing borrowers, but on terms priced suitably for the current market. Equity co-investment would be available as well. This represents an excellent opportunity to deploy capital in seasoned issuers with new sponsorship.

We are always happy to explore such opportunities and share our perspectives, with the goal of developing transactions where there may be a mutual fit.