Founders Trust

The firm lists a ten-person leadership group on its website, including Dr. Anthony Tedeschi, David A. Smith, and Patrick Schiele. Founders Trust does not specify a formal investment committee or a single CIO, but it describes the team as having over 83 years of combined C-level experience. All members are likely involved in both sourcing and execution, given the lean structure.

Founders Trust does not publicly detail its origination channels beyond a general contact form on its website. The firm positions itself as a confidential counterparty for owners seeking growth capital, succession transitions, or partial exits. Its location in the I-88 corridor west of Chicago suggests regional, relationship-driven sourcing among privately held industrial and service businesses.

Founders Trust operates as a private investment group with an evergreen posture, which shares some characteristics with a single-family office but is structured as an asset manager. It does not report managing third-party limited-partner capital raised through a traditional fund cycle. Instead, it appears to deploy proprietary, long-dated capital alongside its confidential advisory practice.

The firm provides turnaround, asset-management, and family-office advisory services to middle-market companies, reporting $1.2 billion in cumulative revenue across advised entities. Founders Trust says it works with complete confidentiality in both advisory and investment roles, but it does not outline formal information-barriers between the two functions. The same core team appears to serve both lines of business.

The website states the firm buys and invests in companies up to $450 million. Across its history, Founders Trust reports $4 billion in completed transactions. The firm is focused on the middle market and lower middle market, indicating that individual deals can range from below $100 million up to the stated ceiling of $450 million.