WHO WE ARE
Neither PE nor traditional family office
TPO is neither a private equity fund nor a traditional family office. Our legacy has put us in a position to use our Family’s capital to grow businesses of all sizes in a range of industries with a focus on our passion of building long-term platform investments. Our Family’s permanent capital base allows us to invest in companies for a long period of time which underpins our buy to build strategy as opposed to a traditional private equity model of buying to sell – buying to build is a philosophy we have had since inception. TPO’s unique history over the last 60 years has led to work on ~200 transactions representing ~$30 billion of equity value, which has provided us with the experience to navigate nearly every situation. TPO is led by Tom Pritzker who has worked at the firm for more than 30 years.
The TPO team has the agility and experience to diligence opportunities and design transactions to fit the needs of stakeholders. Our goal is to acquire positions that enable us to team up with Management to build companies. The benefits we enjoy from our Family’s permanent capital base include:
Long hold periods to compound value free of transactional friction costs and to invest for long-term value creation
A strong focus with deep expertise on maximizing after-tax returns for our partners and ourselves
Agile and flexible processes which allow for speed and certainty for our partners and counterparties
OUR HISTORY
Decades of investing experience
The Pritzker Family traces its roots to Nicholas J. Pritzker, who immigrated to Chicago in 1881. Nicholas established Pritzker & Pritzker as a law firm in 1903. Over the course of the next 100 years, Pritzker & Pritzker evolved into a merchant bank for the Family’s business holdings. In the 1990s, the name was changed to The Pritzker Organization (TPO) to reflect its commercial, rather than legal, mission. Through the successive leadership of A.N. Pritzker, followed by Jay, followed by Tom, The Pritzker Organization has used our Family’s capital base to work with partners and Management teams to found, acquire, and build companies. This resulted in a significant and diverse portfolio of businesses which were, for the most part, privately held.
ABOUT TOM
TPO’s leader for more than 15 years
Tom Pritzker is Jay Pritzker’s successor and has been the leader of TPO for more than 15 years. Tom currently serves as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation and serves on the board of directors of TMS International. Over his career, Tom has been involved in acquiring and building mature companies in a variety of industries. He has also founded significant companies in the fields of container leasing (Triton), life sciences (Bay City Capital), and health care (Reliant Pharmaceuticals and First Health). Outside of business, he is chairman of the board of the Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the Pritzker Architecture Prize, is chairman of CSIS’s Board of Trustees, is a member of the board of trustees of the University of Chicago, and is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.
WHAT WE DELIVER
Speed, certainty, patience, and expertise
Speed: Given our flat and small organization, we have the ability to move quickly through complex situations. Certainty: We do what we say we will do. Our desire is to be the best partner we can be, and that starts with providing certainty to our executives. Patience: Our Family’s capital base is permanent and flexible as it is not beholden to any outside investors. We believe that patient and flexible capital provides businesses with the best opportunity to build scale in their industry. Expertise: Through decades of investing we have built expertise in certain areas as well as industry relationships that we consider to be one of our core assets. The expertise and relationships are fundamental to how we think about opportunities in any vertical. Alignment: We are dogmatic about alignment with our partners and management teams. We believe that long-term business building where we are closely aligned with our partners is the best path for success and we have taken that approach for over 60 years.