Farragut Capital Partners

Co-Managing Partners William Dunbar and H. Lanier Brown lead the firm and set investment policy. They are supported by Partners Paul Kelly and John O'Brien, forming a senior team that has invested together for nearly 20 years. All investment decisions are made internally with no external investment committee, reflecting the firm's structure as a privately held, partner-owned manager.

Farragut is an institutional asset manager, not a family office. It is organized as a privately held investment firm and is licensed by the U.S. Small Business Administration as a Small Business Investment Company. The firm raises and deploys capital through successive SBIC funds, currently on its third vintage, rather than managing a single family's wealth.

No. Farragut explicitly states it does not seek control positions and instead partners with owners and management as a minority shareholder. Its capital is typically structured as subordinated debt with an equity co-investment, leaving operating control with the existing management team or financial sponsor. This non-control posture is core to its origination advantage with founder-owned businesses and independent sponsors.

The SBIC license provides access to long-term, government-guaranteed leverage through the SBA, which lowers Farragut's blended cost of capital and allows it to offer patient junior capital to smaller companies. It also imposes regulatory guardrails around eligible investments, portfolio concentration, and capital deployment pacing. The firm has operated exclusively within this framework since its 2011 founding, and the structure is a permanent feature of the strategy rather than a temporary fund-level tactic.

Farragut targets proven, cash-flow-positive lower-middle-market companies across growth financings, recapitalizations, management buyouts, acquisition financings, and generational ownership transitions. It does not invest in startups or pre-revenue companies; the stated EBITDA threshold is $2 million or greater. The firm's portfolio shows a heavy concentration of buyout and recapitalization transactions, consistent with its mezzanine and minority-equity mandate.

Farragut publishes a clear preferred-industries list — business services, industrial services, light manufacturing, value-added distribution, healthcare, and consumer — and its portfolio reflects this focus. The firm actively avoids asset-heavy industries, real estate, pure technology or biotech startups, and any business model that lacks stable, predictable cash flow. By targeting asset-light, service-oriented companies, it implicitly screens out capital-intensive sectors such as heavy manufacturing, energy extraction, and commodity processing.

Farragut targets a five-to-seven-year investment horizon. Because its capital is structured primarily as subordinated debt, the natural exit is repayment at maturity or upon a change-of-control event, often alongside a sponsor-led sale or recapitalization. The equity co-investment component provides upside participation, but the firm's return profile is anchored to yield and principal return rather than control-driven operational transformation.