Overview
Headquartered in Cambridge, Maryland, Cambridge International, Inc. (“Cambridge”) is North America’s leading designer and manufacturer of custom-engineered metal belting solutions for demanding industrial processing environments.
Bigelow Assignment
Obtain a new institutional investor for the Company who would provide full liquidity for its current majority-owner, partial liquidity and further equity upside for incumbent management, and support for management’s growth business plan.
Challenges
Overcoming the common (mis-) perception that Cambridge’s end-market applications were flat to declining, and that existing, industry-leading profit margins would be difficult to improve upon. Further, a heavy, on-demand, after-market, replacement business made forward growth visibility hard to predict.
“I have always believed that our Company has more growth potential than some would perceive. Bigelow helped us translate and communicate this to Investors in a credible, defendable way and helped us establish mutual, future expectations with our new partner.” William Colson, President & CEO Cambridge International, Inc.
Outcome
Bigelow helped management develop an existing customer-by-customer business development plan that provided transparency to the future end-market growth opportunities for prospective investors. Bigelow also provided a framework for explaining a compelling adjacent market opportunity of metal belts for architectural / building structure applications that Cambridge was uniquely positioned to exploit. This changed perception, along with a credible rationale why operating profits could be improved even beyond today’s superior level, attracted a new private equity investor willing to satisfy the client’s multi-faceted shareholder objectives.