Prospect Partners Closes $165 Million Private Equity Fund

CHICAGO, Ill.—June 21, 2004: Prospect Partners, LLC today announced that it has closed Prospect Partners II at its cap of $165 million. Prospect Partners II is a private equity fund focused on management-led acquisitions of lower middle market companies with niche strategies. It follows the successful $105 million Prospect Partners Fund I raised in 1998.

Investors in Prospect Partners II include Goldman Sachs & Co., General Motors Investment Management Corporation, JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management, the University of Notre Dame, Wilshire Associates, Inc., Private Advisors, LLC and the Northern Trust Corporation.

"We our very pleased with the reception Prospect Partners II received," said Richard C. Tuttle, a Prospect Partners co-founder and principal. "We are grateful for the terrific support from such a high-quality group of investors. We believe that the market environment continues to be quite favorable for identifying and investing in the small niche leaders that have been our historical focus."

Prospect Partners was formed in 1998 by William V. Glastris, Jr., Louis W. Kenter and Tuttle, who have worked together in multiple settings since 1984. They joined together to form a private equity firm that would leverage their investment expertise and interest in the lower middle market. Prospect Partners has since grown to 10 professionals and operates out of a single office in Chicago, Illinois.

Like its predecessor, Prospect Partners II will focus on investing in leading companies within a variety of niche consumer, commercial, specialty distribution and service markets throughout the continental United States. Its acquisitions will focus exclusively on leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations of companies whose revenues are typically between $10 and $30 million at the time of Prospect Partners' investment; add-on acquisitions with as little as $2 million will also be pursued.

Prospect Partners is among the most active private equity buyers of lower middle market companies. According to Tuttle, Prospect Partners II will pursue investments as diverse as those in Fund I, which has invested in 38 companies, including a visitor bureau custom publisher, a marine accessories producer, an operator of secondary schools and a bingo market producer.