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Tampa Bay’s tech startup community generates a lot of excitement — understandably so — among angel investors looking to discover the next must-have product or service.
Private equity funds that specialize in middle-market companies likewise couldn’t be more bullish about the region. That was the message delivered at a recent meeting for the Tampa chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, held at the University Club in downtown Tampa.
“We’re long on Florida, and long on Tampa,” says Ken Hooten, one of the panelists for a discussion titled, “Why Invest in Florida?”
Hooten, a partner at Chicago-based Concentric Family Partners, an investment firm founded by banking veteran Harrison Steans, says Concentric has invested some $284 million in Tampa area companies. One of them, Clearwater-based USAmeriBank, was recently acquired by Valley National Bank for $816 million.
Concentric, he adds, likes to target companies in the services sector that have yet to reach full potential. It looks for firms that could benefit from having an energetic new CEO and whose back-office operations are highly scalable. Similar values and a long-term relational strategy are also essential. To figure out who you want to do business with, he says, “figure out who you want to do life with.”
He adds, “We have an easy time relocating executives to Tampa, and once they are here, they don’t leave.”
The panel also included former Florida state Rep. and House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel. He left politics to become managing partner of Weatherford Capital, an investment firm he founded in 2015 with his brothers Drew and Sam.
Weatherford says he’s deployed about $150 million in the Tampa area, usually as a co-investor along with other private equity firms. Land, multifamily projects and marinas are big parts of the Weatherford portfolio. But the diversified nature of the Tampa Bay economy means he can look for good deals anywhere and everywhere. “We’re extremely agnostic in terms of sectors,” he says.
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