Business Services
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Health Care Services
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Consumer Services
Business Services
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These businesses either enable both large and small companies to conduct their operations more efficiently or more effectively perform routine non-core value added services for which customers typically have trouble finding qualified alternatives. Business services companies focused on efficiency often leverage technology in new and creative ways to capitalize on inefficiencies throughout the supply chain and take advantage of less expensive labor or operating costs to become trusted intermediaries with their customers. Areas of focus include transaction processing, technology development, document management.
On the other hand, those business services companies which focus on providing non-core value added services seek to build predictable, recurring cash flow business by offering their customers alternatives to routine tasks. These companies seek to leverage scale and a specific expertise to provide better service and value at a cheaper "all-in" cost than customers could provide by themselves. In this area we have an emphasis on education and training, facilities services, and franchising.
With regard to the education and training component of Business Services, we seek to take advantage of the shift to a knowledge-based economy in which increasing value is attributable to human capital. Within this $750 billion education and training industry we look to invest in for-profit content owners / providers that can extract value from the evergreen nature of their training material by "repurposing" it via multiple delivery platforms or across vertical markets to meet the needs of individual markets. Additionally, we look for those businesses that can provide the tools or subject-matter expertise to help companies convert, deliver and manage their training to their employees and customers - a non-core task which is typically under-funded in most organizations.
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Health Care Services
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Health care is the United States' largest vertical market. Eighty percent of the more than $1 trillion spent on health care annually is spent on services - payments to physicians, hospitals, and other providers. Yet the health care services industry is expensive, fragmented and inefficient. Health care spending is expected to continue to grow at double-digit annual rates, and a rapidly aging population promises to exert new pressures on an already stressed system.
We believe that the health care industry is facing unprecedented challenges, and is being fundamentally transformed by the changing roles of the physician, payor and patient. We seek those companies that optimize service in traditional settings, provide quality, low-cost options, enhance consumer participation or empower physicians to make informed cost/benefit evaluations.
We are partiularly interested in companies that allow patients to migrate from traditional institutional settings to specialized inpatient or outpatient settings focused on a specific health need. As a result, we look to invest in services companies that (i) address very specific clinical needs of a defined patient group; (ii) are highly focused in their delivery of care in a high-volume, low-cost, patient friendly setting; (iii) are recognized as indispensable and efficient providers by payors; and (iv) offer a more convenient, most cost-effective, and higher quality setting for clinicians and patients.
Additionally, numerous non-core services that traditionally have been managed internally by providers and payors could and should be provided in a less expensive and higher quality setting by a focused, high-volume third party vendor. We believe that numerous opportunities exist to provide these non-core services in an external setting to reduce the cost structure and improve quality, and we look for those opportunities as well.
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Consumer Services
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This group includes branded consumer products and services (including specialty retail). We believe that branded consumer growth companies will continue to provide attractive investment opportunities through their successful efforts to capture consumer attention with products and services that maximize consumer convenience through the preservation of their most valuable commodity - time. In addition, we believe that companies that can attract and meet the growing needs and desires of the 78 million aging baby boomers, as well as the "Gen Y" population, are attractive, particular those with an emphasis on providing "health and wellness" alternatives to the customer. As with Business Services, we are focused on those companies that can build a lasting relationship with the consumer that yields predictable, recurring revenue.
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