BISON CAPITAL ADVISORS, LLC

Thesis

Bison Capital Asset Management, founded in 2001, is a private equity firm specializing in growth equity and structured capital investments in middle-market companies. They target fundamentally strong, lower to middle-market businesses with significant opportunities for value creation and strong, entrepreneurial management teams. Bison Capital aims to partner with management teams, providing supportive capital for growth, acquisitions, and recapitalizations, without taking control of the companies. Their investment approach is flexible, allowing them to invest across the entire capital structure, often structuring investments as preferred stock or subordinated debt, though it is principally equity-oriented. While industry-agnostic, they have principally focused on business services, healthcare services, tech-enabled businesses, and distribution/logistics sectors, preferring sectors with low technology risk. They target lower to middle-market companies for growth equity, expansion capital, MBO/LBO, acquisitions, recapitalization, restructuring, and PIPE transactions. Bison Capital has invested over $1 billion in total capital across six institutional funds. Their predecessor fund (2017-vintage) raised over $376 million, and they were seeking $500 million for Fund VI, with a target final close in Q2 2022. They consider investment sizes of $7.5 million to $60 million, and have also stated they will consider opportunities with an investment size of $10 million or greater, and $20 million or greater. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.