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Fresh off a short sabbatical, ex Speedline chief executive Pierre de Villemejane in March announced he would team again with the investment group that helped turn around his former company. As an adviser to KPS Capital Partners, de Villemejane will look for distressed companies in capital equipment, engineered products, and high value-added assembly industries in North America and Europe. KPS took the further step of actually inviting businesses to come to them, rather than waiting for the time-honored approach of bankruptcy auctions. He spoke with CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY'S Mike Buetow in March.
CA: You have been hired to advise KPS in its acquisition activity. What types of companies will you specifically be looking at?
PdV: We're looking at companies that have a fairly high content of engineering and product development. Broadly, we're interested in companies that make value-added products in a different number of industries, where we can really capitalize on my background on managing highly engineered companies and processes. Those in capital equipment and machinery are of interest, obviously, given KPS's Speedline background, but we are really extending our search to the broader engineered products, value-added and sub-systems assembly industries. We value companies where we can apply what we call "operating leverage": Lean manufacturing, product portfolio redefinition, product development streamlining by implementing such management techniques, we can drive productivity and reduce time-to-market for new products. Also, we are looking at companies where we can take advantage of our Asian outsourcing experience. We're looking for companies with sales of $500 million to $2 billion or more. These would be companies that are having some trouble, as that's what KPS does: focus on distressed companies, ones that are close to the extremes, like...