Fenway Partners

Fenway Partners

Type	Private
Industry	Private Equity
Founded	1994; 23 years ago (1994)
Founder	Richard Dresdale, Peter Lamm
Headquarters	New York, New York, United States
Products	Leveraged buyout, Growth capital
Total assets	$2.1 billion
Number of employees	25+
Website	www.fenwaypartners.com

Fenway Partners is an American private equity firm that makes leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in transportation, logistics, consumer products and manufacturing companies in the middle market.

The firm was founded in 1994 by Richard Dresdale (formerly Clayton, Dubilier & Rice) and Peter Lamm (formerly Butler Capital Partners) and has over $2 billion of capital under management. Since inception, the firm has raised three private equity funds. Fenway's first fund, closed on approximately $525 million of capital commitments in 1996 and just two years later, in 1998, the firm raised an additional $900 million of capital. As a result of several investments made in the 1998 fund, prior to the collapse of the dot-com bubble, performance in that fund was affected. Nevertheless, the firm was able to raise a successor fund in 2006 and 2007 with approximately $700 million of commitments from institutional investors.

Among the firms most notable investments are Targus, 1-800 Contacts, Coach America,Riddell, Bell Sports and Easton.

Targus Corporation

Fenway Partners acquired Targus Group International, an Anaheim, California-based company, for the sum of $382.5 million on November 22 of 2005. During the acquisition of Targus, the managing director at Fenway Partners, Timothy Mayhew, was quoted saying; “Targus has many of the elements Fenway looks for, including a leading market position, a diversified revenue base with high barriers to entry, strong free cash flow and dynamic industry characteristics. Targus was the original creator of carrying cases for portable computers and have since expanded into multiple electronics accessories including; backpacks, locks, keyboards and keypads, privacy screens, to name a few, and most recently with their acquisition of Sena, a high quality leather case maker, into the market of cases for smart phones.