For more than two decades, Tailwind Capital has bought the boring, essential companies that keep infrastructure, supply chains and IT running - then quietly compounded them.
A Connecticut investor has spent three decades buying gearboxes, powder coating and barcode labels - using its own capital, and one unfashionable rule: hold for decades, not quarters.
Most private equity firms rent companies for five years and flip them. Tide Rock buys them with cash, keeps them forever, and mails owners a check every quarter. It is a quieter idea - and it has compounded into more than a billion dollars of buying power.
Heartwood Partners built its pitch around an unfashionable idea in buyouts: use less debt, leave managers with meaningful ownership, and give operating teams room to grow. In a market trained to chase leverage, restraint has become the product.
For 42 years the Chicago firm has run the buyout playbook in reverse - recruiting a billion-dollar operator before it writes a check. In July it closed a $3.2 billion fund to keep doing it.