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Hologic, a manufacturer of diagnostics products, medical imaging systems and surgical products has appointed Scott T. Garrett to the Company’s newly expanded board of directors. Garrett will serve on the company’s corporate development committee.

PRESS RELEASE

Hologic, Inc. (Hologic or the Company) (NASDAQ: HOLX), a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of premium diagnostics products, medical imaging systems and surgical products, with an emphasis on serving the healthcare needs of women, today announced that it has appointed Scott T. Garrett to the Company’s newly expanded Board of Directors. Mr. Garrett will serve on the Company’s Corporate Development Committee.
Mr. Garrett has more than 35 years of experience in the global healthcare industry. He is currently an Operating Partner with Water Street Healthcare Partners, a strategic private equity firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry. Previously, Mr. Garrett served as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Beckman Coulter, a leading biomedical testing company. During Mr. Garrett’s nearly 10-year tenure with Beckman Coulter, he significantly refined the Company’s overall business strategy and operating model, managed a highly effective executive team and executed numerous strategic acquisitions. Prior to that, Mr. Garrett served as Vice Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Officer of Kendro Laboratory Products, and earlier, as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dade Behring. He began his career at American Hospital Supply Corporation and continued there after the company was acquired by Baxter International, ultimately serving as Chief Executive of Baxter’s global laboratory business, Baxter Diagnostics.
“Scott’s expertise is highly complementary to the Hologic Board and we are pleased to welcome him as a new independent director,” said David LaVance, Jr. , Chairman of the Hologic Board of Directors. “Through his more than 35 years working in the life sciences and medical device industries, Scott has amassed a wealth of experience, with a particular focus on diagnostics. Scott will bring unique perspectives and insights to our Board. The Board and I look forward to working with Scott to create value for all of our stakeholders, including stockholders, employees, clinicians and the patients that they serve.”
“Scott is a proven business leader who brings a strong track record of value creation to our Board,” said Rob Cascella , President and Chief Executive Officer. “His extensive industry experience will be invaluable as we continue to develop our diagnostics portfolio and international expansion programs. We will benefit from Scott’s guidance as we execute our strategy to achieve long-term growth across each of Hologic’s franchises.”
Mr. Garrett said, “Hologic’s strengths and leading market positions provide outstanding opportunities for continued growth and value creation. I look forward to working alongside my fellow directors and the Hologic management team to contribute to the Company’s success.”
With the addition of Mr. Garrett, the Hologic Board now consists of ten directors, eight of whom are independent.
About Scott Garrett :
Mr. Garrett is an Operating Partner with Water Street Healthcare Partners, a strategic private equity firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry. From 2002 to 2011, Mr. Garrett served in various senior roles at Beckman Coulter, a leading biomedical testing company, including President of Clinical Diagnostics, Chief Operating Officer, and ultimately, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Before joining Beckman Coulter, from 1999 to 2001, he served as Vice Chairman and Interim CEO of Kendro Laboratory Products. In 1998, Mr. Garrett founded Garrett Capital Advisors LLC, a private equity firm focused on venture investments in the life sciences and medical device industries, and partnered with members of the Water Street team to build a group of leading healthcare companies. From 1994 to 1998, Mr. Garrett was Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dade Behring (known as Dade International until its merger with Behring Diagnostics in 1997), where he helped build the Company into one of the world’s largest clinical diagnostics companies. From 1975 to 1994, he served in positions of increasing responsibility at Baxter International Inc. and American Hospital Supply Corporation (which was acquired by Baxter in 1985), including Chief Executive of Baxter Diagnostics, the Company’s global laboratory business.
Mr. Garrett received a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree from Valparaiso University.
Mr. Garrett is an active member of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed). He has a combined tenure of 10 years on AdvaMed’s board of directors and was instrumental in founding AdvaMedDx, an industry association focused on in vitro diagnostics. Mr. Garrett currently serves as the Chairman of MarketLab, as a director of Immucor, Inc., and as a director of Genesys Works, a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of inner city high school students.
About Hologic, Inc.:
Hologic, Inc. is a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of premium diagnostic products, medical imaging systems, and surgical products, with an emphasis on serving the healthcare needs of women. The Company operates four core business units focused on breast health, diagnostics, GYN surgical and skeletal health. With a comprehensive suite of technologies and a robust research and development program, Hologic is committed to improving lives. The Company is headquartered in Massachusetts.

Investor Relations and Media Contacts:

Deborah R. Gordon
Vice President, Investor Relations
(781) 999-7716
[email protected]
Al Kildani
Senior Director, Investor Relations
(858) 410-8653
[email protected]

SOURCE Hologic, Inc.

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Webster Financial Corporation has announced the pricing of the underwritten secondary offering by Warburg Pincus Private Equity X, L.P. and one of its affiliates of 8,744,850 shares of Webster common stock. All of the shares are being sold by Warburg Pincus and the firm will receive all of the net proceeds from the offering.

PRESS RELEASE

Webster Financial Corporation (“Webster”) (NYSE: WBS), the holding company for Webster Bank , N.A., announced today the pricing of the previously announced underwritten secondary offering by Warburg Pincus Private Equity X, L.P. and one of its affiliates (“Warburg Pincus”) of 8,744,850 shares of Webster common stock. Immediately following completion of the offering, Warburg Pincus will no longer own any shares of Webster’s outstanding common stock. All of the shares are being sold by Warburg Pincus, and Warburg Pincus will receive all of the net proceeds from the offering.
J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank Securities are acting as joint bookrunners for the common stock offering.
The offering is expected to close on or about May 13, 2013, subject to customary closing conditions.
A shelf registration statement, including a prospectus, with respect to the offering was previously filed by Webster with the SEC and became effective on December 20, 2011. A preliminary prospectus relating to the offering has been filed with the SEC. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus. Copies of the prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to these securities may be obtained without charge from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, Attn: Prospectus Department, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, telephone: (866) 803-9204 and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Attn: Prospectus Group, 60 Wall Street, New York, New York 10005-2836, email: [email protected], telephone: (800) 503-4611. A copy of the prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus may also be obtained without charge by visiting the SEC website at www.sec.gov.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.
Webster Financial Corporation is the holding company for Webster Bank , N.A. With $20 billion in assets, Webster provides business and consumer banking, mortgage, financial planning, trust and investment services through 168 banking offices, 294 ATMs, telephone banking, mobile banking and the Internet. Webster Bank owns the asset based lending firm Webster Business Credit Corporation; the equipment finance firm Webster Capital Finance Corporation; and HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank , which provides health savings account trustee and administrative services. Member FDIC and equal housing lender.
Forward-looking statements
This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the “Act”). Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as “believes,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “targeted,” “continue,” “remain,” “will,” “should,” “may,” “plans,” “estimates,” and similar references to future periods; however, such words are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (i) projections of revenues, expenses, income or loss, earnings or loss per share, and other financial items; (ii) statements of plans, objectives, and expectations of Webster or its management or Board of Directors; (iii) statements of future economic performance; and (iv) statements of assumptions underlying such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on Webster’s current expectations and assumptions regarding its business, the economy, and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Webster’s actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements, which are neither statements of historical fact nor guarantees or assurances of future performance. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (1) local, regional, national, and international economic conditions and the impact they may have on us and our customers and our assessment of that impact; (2) volatility and disruption in national and international financial markets; (3) government intervention in the U.S. financial system; (4) changes in the level of non-performing assets and charge-offs; (5) changes in estimates of future reserve requirements based upon the periodic review thereof under relevant regulatory and accounting requirements; (6) adverse conditions in the securities markets that lead to impairment in the value of securities in our investment portfolio; (7) inflation, interest rate, securities market, and monetary fluctuations; (8) the timely development and acceptance of new products and services and perceived overall value of these products and services by customers; (9) changes in consumer spending, borrowings, and savings habits; (10) technological changes; (11) the ability to increase market share and control expenses; (12) changes in the competitive environment among banks, financial holding companies, and other financial service providers; (13) the effect of changes in laws and regulations (including laws and regulations concerning taxes, banking, securities, and insurance) with which we and our subsidiaries must comply, including those under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Basel III update to the Basel Accords; (14) the effect of changes in accounting policies and practices, as may be adopted by the regulatory agencies, as well as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and other accounting standard setters; (15) the costs and effects of legal and regulatory developments including the resolution of legal proceedings or regulatory or other governmental inquiries and the results of regulatory examinations or reviews; (16) our success at managing the risks involved in the foregoing items and (17) the other factors that are described in Webster’s annual and quarterly reports under the heading “Risk Factors.” Any forward-looking statement made by Webster in this release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause Webster’s actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Webster to predict all of them. Webster undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

Media Contact
Investor Contact
Bob Guenther, 203-578-2391
Terry Mangan, 203-578-2318
[email protected]
[email protected]
SOURCE Webster Financial Corporation

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Klockner Pentaplast, rigid films and packaging solutions company has completed a refinancing. The company was acquired by a group of investors led by SVP Global in June 2012.

PRESS RELEASE

Strategic Value Partners, LLC (“SVP Global”), a leading global investment firm focused on distressed and deep value opportunities, today reported that the holding company of Klockner Pentaplast (“kp” or the “Company”), the global leader in rigid films and packaging solutions which was acquired by a group of investors led by SVP Global in a June 2012 re-capitalization, has completed a re-financing.
Proceeds from the €225 million ($294 million) financing will be used to partially re-finance the existing Preferred Equity Certificates issued as part of last year’s re-capitalization and will lead to a substantial return of capital (including the return of all the new monies invested last June) to investors after just 10 months of ownership. Due to its strong performance under SVP Global, kp will remain conservatively leveraged following the re-financing transaction – with net debt at HoldCo being 4.6x EBITDA for the 12 months through December 2012 – and the Company believes it is well positioned to drive to its next level of operating performance.
Victor Khosla , Founder and Chief Investment Officer of SVP Global, said:
“We are delighted with the performance of kp and to be partners with such a strong management team. This re-financing allows for the return of significant capital to investors in less than one year, while leaving the Company well positioned to deliver on its strong prospects both in its current markets and as it expands into newer emerging markets in Asia and South America.”
Christian Holtmann , CEO of kp, said:
“We are pleased that the strong operational performance of kp has enabled this successful re-financing to occur. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our board and SVP Global and delivering our group strategy of ‘Grow the core, extend the reach, expand the breadth.’”
Since the re-capitalization last June, SVP Global has worked closely with the Company to help its management team to deliver excellent operational results. Performance has improved substantially with Adjusted EBITDA increasing by nearly 15% from €143 million for the LTM to March 2012 to €164 million for the LTM to December 2012. This acceleration in both growth and profitability has been driven by a number of initiatives including: market share gains in high profitability sectors; margin improvement both through selective price increases plus active raw material management; and a comprehensive, global operational improvement program. The Company believes it is characterized by a unique profitable growth profile and a high conversion of EBITDA to cash flow.
This strong operational performance and related cash flow generation has enabled the Company to make voluntary repayments of its senior debt, delivering an almost 10% reduction in net debt between end of June and December 2012. Kp has therefore been able to complete this debt re-financing while keeping the its capital structure on what we believe to be very solid footing.
About Klockner Pentaplast
Kp is headquartered in Montabaur, Germany and is the global leader in rigid plastic film and packaging solutions. The Company has sales of €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) and employs just over 3,000 people committed to serving customers worldwide. Its operations in Europe and the Americas, including Brazil and Argentina, contribute equally to profits, and the Company is growing its Asian activities. Kp benefits from unique access to blue chip customers, including global pharmaceutical groups, and has developed intimate relationships with its customers over many years. The Company is first or second in the majority of its markets across Europe and North America as well as a rapidly growing presence in emerging markets around the globe.
About SVP Global
SVP Global was founded in 2001 by Victor Khosla . With firm assets primarily across a hedge fund strategy ($1.6 billion) and private equity funds ($2.1 billion raised), SVP is a leading global investment firm with primary offices in Greenwich (CT), London, Frankfurt, and Tokyo. SVP is focused on distressed and deep value opportunities. SVP seeks to create value in its investments through its substantial industry, restructuring and operating expertise.
For Further Information:
Europe
Andrew Dowler
+44 20 7251 3801
[email protected]
U.S.
Todd Fogarty
+ 1 212 521 4854
[email protected]
SOURCE Strategic Value Partners, LLC

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Victory Park Capital has announced a $25 million credit facility for Chicago-based AvantCredit, an online lending company offering loans between $1,000 and $10,000 to individuals. In addition to the credit facility, VPC also participated in AvantCredit’s Series A equity round led by August Capital.

PRESS RELEASE

Victory Park Capital (VPC), an asset management firm that specializes in direct credit and equity investing in middle- and lower-middle-market companies, announced a $25 million credit facility for Chicago-based AvantCredit, a leading online lending company offering loans between $1,000 and $10,000 to individuals. In addition to the credit facility, VPC also participated in AvantCredit’s Series A equity round led by August Capital.
“The team at AvantCredit has developed a robust suite of risk management processes that evaluate consumer credit and make highly competitive loans to underserved borrowers. We are excited to provide financing for AvantCredit as it expands its loan portfolio and meets the growing credit needs of consumers,” said Brendan Carroll , Co-Founder and Partner at Victory Park Capital. “As traditional banks remain hesitant to lend across consumer segments, we will see the growth of new and innovative credit solutions like AvantCredit.”
Launched in late 2012, AvantCredit provides customers with a new lending experience using state-of-the-art analytics methods and the highest data encryption security standards. Utilizing hundreds of distinct customer attributes including credit, social and meta data, the firm offers small businesses the highest approval likelihood with the lowest possible rates. The company is fully licensed and operating in 10 states. AvantCredit wrote its first loans in 2013 and within months has built up a loan portfolio of more than $4 million.
“This funding will allow us to grow our internal technology and analytics capabilities so that we can continue to offer our customers great online credit products that are lacking in today’s market,” said John Sun , Co-Founder and Chief Risk Officer of AvantCredit.
About Victory Park Capital (VPC)
Victory Park Capital is an alternative investment firm that provides private debt and equity financing solutions to middle-market and lower middle-market companies across a wide range of industries. The firm focuses on traditional and complex situations, and seeks to build long-term sustainable value in its portfolio companies. VPC’s focus on certainty and speed to close provides the companies it seeks to invest in with a high level of security throughout the relationship. For more information, visit: http://www.victoryparkcapital.com.
About AvantCredit.com
AvantCredit (Avant Credit Corporation and affiliates) was launched in late 2012 to change the way customers borrow and provide customers with a new and unique borrowing experience by offering fully-unsecured installment loans between $1,000 and $10,000. AvantCredit offers superb customer experience that is 100 percent online, offering privacy, flexibility and transparency to the consumer. AvantCredit’s unique combination of technology, analytics and customer service capability allows the Company to offer credit to borrowers with less-than-perfect credit at some of the lowest cost available online to the target audience. AvantCredit operates in 10 US states and is licensed and regulated on a state by state basis. Find out more at http://www.AvantCredit.com.
About August Capital
August Capital was founded in 1995 to invest in companies differentiated by technical innovation and entrepreneurial excellence. Today, August Capital’s eight investment professionals have more than a century of combined venture and operational experience. Together they manage $1.3 billion and have invested in more than 75 companies across the technology spectrum. From its inception, August Capital has funded an extraordinary group of entrepreneurs who have built significant, long-term value across the full range of information technologies. The companies that August Capital’s partners have backed represent an aggregate market capitalization of well over $250 billion, generate in excess of $75 billion in annual revenue and employ a quarter of a million people around the world. This success is a testament to the entrepreneurs themselves, as well as the fundamental technologies they have created. We are proud to have supported these entrepreneurs and their companies as they have grown and prospered. For more information, visit: http://www.augustcap.com/.
Contact: Amanda Moss
Phone: 312-240-3188
Email: [email protected]
SOURCE Victory Park Capital

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Partners Group and Perennius Capital Partners are to integrate all their investment and client service activities in Italy. Perennius Capital Partners has been Partners Group’s exclusive Italian partner since its foundation in 2007. Its Milan office will bring Partners Group’s total number of offices to 16 worldwide.

PRESS RELEASE

Partners Group, the global private markets investment manager, and Perennius Capital Partners today announce that they will integrate all their investment and client service activities in Italy. Perennius Capital Partners has been Partners Group’s exclusive Italian partner since its foundation in 2007. Its Milan office will bring Partners Group’s total number of offices to 16 around the globe.

Over the past six years, Perennius Capital Partners has, in a mutually exclusive partnership for Italy, offered tailor-made private markets investment solutions to Italian clients in response to the increased appetite observed amongst institutional investors. In addition, both Partners Group and Perennius Capital Partners have sourced and transacted on attractive investment opportunities in the region, such as the investment completed in one of the largest single operating solar power plant in Europe in the Rovigo province of northern Italy on behalf of their clients. Following the significant success of the two firm’s joint activities, merging all investment and client activities into one global platform is the logical next step for further enhancing the private markets solutions available to the Italian client base.

Alessandro Poli, founder and managing partner of Perennius Capital Partners, comments “The entire management team of Perennius Capital Partners is very excited and feels honored to join the Partners Group platform. We are proud to have established our firm as the name of reference in the private markets industry in Italy with regards to performance, integrity and professional standing over the course of the past six years. We remain committed to further improving local services to our Italian clients while continuing to offer them broad access to the global private markets investment universe.”

Dr. Marcel Erni, Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Partners Group, adds “We look forward to successfully continuing to expand our activities in Italy for the benefit of our common client base, enabling them to invest through a global investment platform. We believe the Italian market continues to offer compelling opportunities in specialized sectors and believe that the Perennius team’s local network, access and investment expertise will ensure we continue to be able to identify and invest in the most attractive of these.”

The integration is expected to be completed in the coming months and remains subject to regulatory approval.

About Partners Group
Partners Group is a global private markets investment management firm with over EUR 28 billion in investment programs under management in private equity, private real estate, private infrastructure and private debt. The firm manages a broad range of customized portfolios for an international clientele of institutional investors. Partners Group is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and has offices in San Francisco, New York, São Paulo, London, Guernsey, Paris, Luxembourg, Munich, Dubai, Singapore, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Sydney. The firm employs over 600 people, is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (symbol: PGHN) with a market capitalization of over CHF 6 billion and a major ownership by its partners and employees.

Investor relations contact
Philip Sauer
Phone: +41 41 784 66 60
E-mail: [email protected]

Media relations contact
Dr. Anna Hollmann
Phone: +41 41 784 63 72
E-mail: [email protected]

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Mobile VoIP provider Viber has broken new ground by releasingViber for Desktop 3.0 for Windows and Mac, extending its existing mobile service beyond the mobile-only Viber 3.0 app to desktops and laptops.

The new desktop build provides all the functionality currently enjoyed on the mobile app, including free voice calls, photo messaging, text chat and location-sharing with other Viber users, but also adds support for desktop-to-desktop video conferencing too.

It’s hard not to draw comparisons between Viber and other similar VOiP services, in particular Skype. However, there are key differences, particularly in the sign up and registration process. Viber users must install the mobile app first and register their mobile number, which is used to identify them on the Viber network.

The advantage of this approach is that finding other Viber users is simple — by granting the mobile app access to the phone’s address book, it can automatically detect other Viber users and make them immediately visible via the app’s Contacts screen.

This functionality is mirrored in the new desktop version — users must have first configured and registered the app using their mobile phone, then use this to log into the desktop version. A confirmation SMS is sent to the user’s phone, and then the desktop app is enabled as an extension of the mobile service, allowing users to seamlessly switch devices during calls and chats. This connection extends to the syncing of messages between mobile and desktop apps.

The desktop application functions in a similar way to the mobile app, albeit with an extended screen and interface. It’s also unique in providing video call capabilities using a compatible webcam — at the present time this feature is in beta, and restricted to desktop-to-desktop calls only.

While direct video conferencing isn’t yet available to mobile users, brand new versions of Viber 3.0 for iOS and Android have introduced video messaging capabilities, which work in a similar way to the video message feature recently added to Skype. Other new features include new stickers, support for transferring live calls between desktop and mobile, and improved voice engine promising better quality on all networks.

Viber may initially struggle to compete with more established services such as Skype, particularly if users struggle to persuade their contacts to switch or try the new service. However, with over 200 million users worldwide, it won’t be going anywhere any time soon.

Viber for Desktop 3.0.0.132799 is available now as a freeware download for PC and Macs with dual-core processors and 1GB RAM. PCs require Windows XP SP3 or later, while the Mac build requires OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later. Also available is Viber 3.0 for Android and iOS.

Launch a program, collect an email, visit a website — just about everything you do on a PC results in some kind of change to the files on your PC. And normally the low-level details of this won’t interest you in the slightest, but there will be occasional exceptions.

Maybe you think you’ve been infected by malware, for instance. Perhaps you’re wondering what an installation program is adding to your system. Or you might just want to know why your hard drive activity light is flashing, all the time. But whatever the reason,Check5 can help, by monitoring any folders of interest and showing you, in real time, exactly how their contents are changing.

To try this out you must first point the program at the folders you’d like to track. Click Folder Monitor > Add Folder to Monitor, and repeat the process for everything you’d like to watch. (Or just specify a root folder — C:\ , say – to monitor a full drive.)

Now just launch any program which creates, amends, deletes or renames files in any of those folders, and you’ll see its actions displayed in the main File List Grid: the file name, path, size, attributes, and created, modified and last access dates.

If your applications are generating a lot of activity then this can become hard to follow, but there are ways to improve the situation. Monitoring somewhere lower down the folder tree can help, for instance. And an Event Logging menu allows you to record only the event types which interest you: file creations, say.

Just in case this isn’t enough, Check5 also includes various batch file management tools which you can apply to the logged events. So if, say, you’ve recorded 500 files being created in a particular folder, then the program can rename all of those according to the rules you specify, in a single operation.

Well, that’s the theory, anyway. In practice we found this aspect of the program to be confusing and rather impractical, but if you need this kind of feature then it might (just about) come in useful.

We suspect that most people, though, will use Check5 solely for its file monitoring features. And that’s just fine, because these are good enough to justify installing the program, all on their own.

Photo Credit: S.john/Shutterstock

I was with a friend recently who has a pretty exciting Internet startup company. He has raised some money and might raise more, his product is in beta and it’s good. It solves a difficult technical problem many companies are struggling with. We argued a little over the name of the product. Of course I thought my suggested name was better or certainly cleverer, but then he said, “It doesn’t matter because we’ll probably sell the company before the product ever ships. It may never appear at all.”

His company will exit almost before it enters. This is happening a lot lately and we generally think it is a good thing but it’s not.

If, like me, you spend a lot of time around startups you know that one of the standard questions asked of founders is “what’s your exit strategy?” An exit is a so-called liquidity event — a transaction of some sort that turns company equity into spendable cash often making someone (hopefully the founders) rich enough for their children to have something to fight over.

Typical exits are Initial Public Offerings of shares or acquisitions, one company being bought by another. But this whole scenario isn’t exactly as it appears, because the person typically asking the exit question is an investor or a prospective investor and what he or she really wants to know is “what’s my exit strategy?”

How are you going to make me rich if I choose to invest in your company?

Were it not for demanding investors the exit question would be asked less often because it isn’t even an issue with many company founders who are already doing what they like and presumably making a good living at it.

The Lifers

What’s Larry Ellison‘s exit strategy?

Larry doesn’t have one.

Neither did Steve Jobs, Gordon Moore, Bob Noyce, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, or a thousand other company founders whose names don’t happen to be household words.

What’s Michael Dell’s exit strategy? Dell, who is trying to take his namesake company private, to de-exit, wants to climb back inside his corporate womb.

There was a time not long ago when exits happened primarily to appease early investors. The company would go public, money would change hands, but the same people who founded the company would still be running it. That’s how most of the name Silicon Valley firms came to be.

Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com has no exit strategy. Neither does Reed Hastings of NetFlix. You know Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com has no exit strategy.

But what about Jack Dorsey of Twitter or even Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook? I wonder about those companies. They just don’t have a sense of permanence to me.

And what about Bill Gates? In Accidental Empires I wrote that Gates wasn’t going anywhere, that running Microsoft was his life’s work. Yet he’s given up his corporate positions and moved on to philanthropy for the most part, despite this week’s effort to shore-up his fading fortune by claiming that iPad users are “frustrated.”

Yeah, right.

Bill Gates didn’t have an exit strategy until running Microsoft stopped being fun, so he found an exit. And I think the same can be said for any of these name founders, that they wanted to stay on the job as long as it remained fun.

Paradigm Pushed

But the new paradigm — the Instagram paradigm (zero to a billion in 12 months or less) — is different. This paradigm says that speed is everything and there is no permanence in business. It’s a paradigm pushed by earnings-crazed Wall Street analysts and non-founder public company CEOs who each work an average of four years before pulling their golden ripcords. In high tech this has led to startups being seen as bricks with which big companies are made bigger.

Sometimes thee bricks are made of technology, sometimes they are made simply of people.

Build or buy? The answer, whenever possible, is now buy-buy-buy because even if the cost of buying is higher the outcome seems to be more assured. My buddy with his startup has solved a problem being faced by other companies, really big companies, so it’s probably easier for one of those to buy his startup than to solve the problem themselves.

And there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this except it leads to a lot of people being where they aren’t really happy, working off multi-year pay-outs just counting the days until they can get out of the acquiring company that made them rich.

Even those who embrace the quick-and-dirty ethos of almost instant exits seem to do so  because they don’t know better. “What’s your exit strategy?” they’ve been asked a thousand times, so they not only have one, their papier-mâché startups are designed from the start with that exit in mind whether it’s the right thing to do or not.

I think this is sad and — even worse — I think it is leading to a lot of wasted talent. It cheats us of chances for greatness.

I wish more companies had no exit strategies at all.

Reprinted with permission

Photo Credit: Mopic/Shutterstock

It’s one of the biggest cover-ups in the history of nutrition: Those “conventional” multivitamins sold at grocery stores, pharmacies and big-box stores are filled with synthetic chemicals that are fraudulently called “vitamins.” Ascorbic acid, pyridoxine (B6), niacin…

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If you paid any attention to the news surrounding the terrorist attacks at the Boston Marathon – and in particular the house-to-house searches that took place in the hours following the attacks – you witnessed a growing trend in law enforcement that should be very concerning…

Shortly after the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, a local newspaper – The Boston Herald – reported that the family of the alleged bombers, and the bombers themselves, had been receiving state and federal welfare benefits. In its initial report within several days…

Two large honey packers, including one of the nation’s biggest – Groeb Farms of Onsted, Mich. – have admitted to purchasing millions of dollars’ worth of honey that was falsely labeled. National Public Radio reports that the goal of this mislabeling, which has been…

What do you get when you combine the infinite technology of the internet, the creativity of 3D printing, and a principled Second Amendment belief? You get 3-D printed guns, downloadable to anyone around the world. This kind of thinking has rendered the gun debate…