We continue getting involved in new and diversified businesses. Once we have a Platform Business we are fine with bolt-on acquisitions to those businesses. The new management team of the incoming business would be integrated into the platform business.

At Peterson Brothers Inc. our private equity activity is generally limited to how we get into a new business. We do not intend to trade in businesses. Our intent is to help the management team run the business as well as it can be run, maximizing dividends and healthy growth. We work from a beginning point that the business should run as a meritocracy and it should be principle based, searching for best practices. This allows the management team to be highly cooperative and most effective because they have created a common target outcome.

When it is time for either the original Owners or the Management Team to exit the business, we would like the Holding Company to be the exit plan. Sometimes the Owners want to be done as soon as we get involved. Other times an Owner or the Management Team wants to spend the rest of their career building the business. Either condition is acceptable with us. We will always need a competent Management Team at the helm of every company and every line of business (see End Structure ).