Private Equity 101

My first week on the job began with Beartooth’s annual investors’ meeting in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sun Valley was as picturesque as I had imagined, though perhaps quainter and a bit more remote. I spent several days getting to know the rest of the staff (five full-time team members) and investors. I had the opportunity to listen to the two founders of Beartooth address the investors in a full-day meeting on Beartooth’s progress to date and plans for the future. In some ways, the meeting reminded me of the Board of Directors meetings at POST – in the sense that the focus was on the big picture, the “so what?” of Beartooth’s work. In other ways, it was worlds apart… from the meeting location (the fanciest kids’ ski lodge I’ve ever seen) to questions about distributions, value creation, risk mitigation, and expected capital calls, which introduced me to a new vocabulary of words that I understood in isolation but not in context.

Though I can’t go into detail about the content of the meeting here, I can say that one of the highlights was a presentation by the head of a state program for a key Beartooth conservation partner. She offered a ringing endorsement of Beartooth’s work from an environmental perspective, referring to them as “the real deal” – three small words that, coming from a third-party conservationist, spoke more to Beartooth’s environmental success than any number of Excel charts and comb-bound PowerPoint presentations could ever hope to.

With the XM satellite radio comedy station and three men with a penchant for Napoleon Dynamite impersonations to accompany me, we drove from Sun Valley to Bozeman, Montana, where Beartooth’s main office is. In true start-up fashion, the team is currently working out of the first floor office and dining room of one of the founder’s houses (the charming yellow one in the photo). Bozeman itself is the embodiment of the Old West in a state of transition to the New West, with original brick facades that open into outdoor supply stores, independent booksellers, and the highest number of coffee shops per capita I’ve seen in a long time.

We spent the week in Bozeman preparing the annual report, inspecting a river restoration project, and branding cattle in between May snow storms. Just another week at the office… and with that, I head to Santa Barbara, where I expect it to be warmer, quieter, and a bit less rugged, to say the least…