• Consults and/or invests in small and medium-sized businesses to help them achieve leadership in their markets and develop a reputation for excellence in their industries.
• Operates on the principal that a commitment to excellence by outstanding people, combined with a focus on long-term growth and profitability, will generate substantial returns on investment.

Strategy

We engage exclusively in projects that can significantly benefit from our strategy of creating value through a long-term commitment to attaining excellence.  Small and medium-sized firms often suffer from financial constraints, lack of access to needed expertise, and operational limitations that prevent them from realizing their full potential.  As active participants, we are able to assist management pursue strategies for realizing and adding substantial value.

We believe that strong management is crucial to the success of all investments.  Consequently, we place a high value on experienced managers.  When necessary, we assist management in planning and implementing specific strategic, operating, marketing, and financial plans.  All decisions are guided by the goals of long-term growth, excellence and adding value.  Short-term financial and operating practices will not be employed unless they coincide with long-term objectives.

Project Candidates

The projects that engage posses or have the potential to develop some combination of the following characteristics:

• A talented management team in place.
• High growth potential.
• Strong customer relationships.
• A special market niche.
• Significant opportunities for HM Invest to add value
• Achievement of excellence in operations and customer service
• Opportunity to achieve a significant increase in value through a fundamental change in strategy or direction.

We have an on-going search program designed to identify attractive projects in preferred industry groups.  We investigate the most promising of these projects and enter into discussions with their owners.  While the project engagement of publicly traded firms is not ruled out, we prefer to engage in privately held firms.  Our network of business contacts and relationships also alerts us to a significant number of attractive opportunities.

Approach to Value Creation

HM Invest intends to maximize value over the long term by:

• Fostering the development of a strong culture within an organization that values excellence and quality.
• Providing a stimulating environment that encourages innovation and an entrepreneurial orientation.
• Ensuring that managers establish corporate goals and strategy, financial controls, and operating performance measures that provide clear and reliable feedback on the firm’s progress.
• Improving a firm’s performance by integrating and enhancing the quality of marketing, management, operations, information systems and finance through the use of additional resources, as required.
• Enabling a firm to take advantage of attractive opportunities which require additional capital and ensuring the necessary supply of working capital to permit both optimal operating polices and the establishment of “most preferred” relationships with suppliers.
• Structuring managerial and employee incentive systems that are aligned with the principles of excellence, customer satisfaction, and long-term value creation and development.
• Taking advantage of our network of our relationships in the Northeast region and other areas.
• Focusing on firms in industries with healthy outlooks for the foreseeable future and carefully selecting candidate firms within those targeted markets.
• Valuing selected firms fairly to ensure that the price reflects the probability of ultimately meeting the desired rate of return on investment while providing fair return to the seller.