JS&K WEALTH CREATION

Business Systems and Due Diligence
Every year our professional teams look at and review hundreds of potential acquisition opportunities. Only a handful ultimately becomes acquisition or takeover company material. Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc.'s lengthy and comprehensive due diligence method includes assessments of a company's management team, market place, and prospects for growth. Our investment teams spend a large amount of time with senior managers to understand the opportunities and risks of a business and their vision for company growth. We visit factories and other facilities to review the business with manufacturing executives, purchasing managers, marketing people, and sales personnel among other experts. We speak to customers, suppliers, and industry experts. This method of due diligence reflects our conviction that long term wealth creation is the consequence of an investment basis formulated on detailed knowledge rather than financial engineering.

When an investment team decides that a company is worth of serious consideration, the opportunity is presented to the Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. Investment Committee. Reviewing all proposals, the Investment Committee brings restraint and organization to decision making about new investments decisions. Between the first Investment Committee proposal and a final investment decision, a transaction team makes several presentations to the committee, providing updated due diligence and asking for advice on valuation and methods for negotiating. By finding opportunities for increasing revenue and cash flow during the due diligence phase, Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. and its portfolio companies are able to create growth and improvements as soon as a deal is concluded.

When Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. has acquired a company, the firm's Portfolio Management Committee begins its work of reviewing and monitoring accomplishments. The team is made up of senior Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. investment professionals and senior advisors to the firm. Like Investment Committee meetings, Portfolio Management Committee meetings are very interactive, and the discussions of business issues are one of the ways that Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. executives pass on the accumulated knowledge to the firm's junior professionals. A key responsibility of the Portfolio Management Committee is reviewing the plan for new mergers and acquisitions. Each plan sets forth the steps that Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. and company management have decided are necessary to attain operational goals. Our plans are very detailed and assign precise responsibilities to managers and Jacob Stuart & Knight Inc. experts.