Types of Investments

Public Equity– Quaker Capital Investments (“QCI”) levers its founder’s 30 years of professional investment management experience investing in public equities. Our goal is to be effective stewards of our capital by generating excess risk-adjusted investment returns. In so doing, we also advance the funding of our other investment and philanthropic interests. We manage a concentrated portfolio of long equities and a modest and diversified book of short positions. We also invest episodically in distressed fixed income securities. The company’s investment approach is value oriented, global and opportunistic. We attempt to purchase securities for less than half of their long term intrinsic value. Through rigorous financial statement analysis and risk-reward discipline, we expect to generate significant alpha or excess investment returns. Valuing creativity and independence of thought, we believe it is essential to have differential thinking to produce differential results. In the words of Bernard Baruch, we try to “never follow the crowd”. Finally, we take a very long term view of our investments, thinking in terms of quarter-centuries rather than quarters.

Regional Early Stage Venture Capital– QCI partners with exceptional founder/entrepreneurs in the Western Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and New York regions. The family office provides seed and Series A capital to emerging companies. The candidates for investment typically have established revenues, a sizeable market opportunity, and a reasonable path to breakeven. QCI often partners with established accelerator programs in Pittsburgh including Innovation Works and Alpha Labs as well as other family offices to source and fund investment opportunities. The office typically invests between 50K to 200K in a funding round  in the form of a convertible preferred or bond instrument to participate in bridging an emerging company from early stage to a lead venture capital investor and eventual profitability. QCI often continues its participation in later rounds alongside venture capital.

Direct Private Equity -QCI is open to making direct control equity investments in private companies with the following characteristics:

  • A quality business with a competitive moat
  • EBITDA between $2 and $5 million
  • Ownership transition due to succession or retirement
  • Located in the mid-Atlantic or midwest U.S.
  • A business we can understand.

Our objective is to hold these businesses indefinitely, i.e., for multiple generations.  As a single family office, we have no artificial deadlines for liquidation characteristic of private equity funds.  For us, these investments are marriages not dates. We expect to maintain the existing culture of the company while providing business and capital allocation support to help these businesses and their associates reach their full potential.