Race Rock Group

Donald Young, the founder and managing member, leads all investment decisions. He built Hoover Ferguson into a global platform before exiting to First Reserve, and his operational background — rather than an institutional committee process — drives Race Rock's deal judgment. The firm lists three additional team members, but Young is the sole managing member controlling capital deployment.

Race Rock deploys its partners' capital directly for smaller investments and raises additional strategic capital on a deal-by-deal basis for larger transactions. This structure avoids a blind-pool fund, meaning the firm can tailor the investor syndicate to each deal without fixed deployment windows or mandatory exit timelines.

No. The firm explicitly operates with an unlimited investment horizon and a buy, build, and hold-in-perpetuity mentality. Unlike traditional private equity firms constrained by 5- to 7-year fund lives, Race Rock structures its investments to compound operating cash flow indefinitely, exiting only when it chooses.

Race Rock Infrastructure is a nationwide manufacturer and supplier of critical infrastructure products — including highway safety, galvanizing, and telecom components — with seven locations in Texas, Ohio, and Connecticut. Donald Young serves as its chairman and CEO, and it appears to be the largest consolidated operating platform within the Race Rock Group portfolio, invested in 2020.

The firm targets lower middle-market businesses in specialty rental equipment, chemicals, industrial services, manufacturing and fabrication, food and beverage, financial services, and real estate. Its current portfolio spans infrastructure manufacturing, de novo banking, cobalt production, industrial real estate, and outsourced customer acquisition — with a geographic focus on the US Gulf Coast and Middle America.

Race Rock primarily deploys its partners' own capital, but it raises additional strategic capital externally for larger opportunities. The firm describes its outside capital sources as 'likeminded' and committed on a deal-level basis, rather than through a commingled limited-partner fund.

Young led a 2009 management buyout of Hoover Group and served as chairman and CEO of Hoover Ferguson until 2019, growing it to 42 locations across 26 countries. He subsequently served as an executive-in-residence with Warburg Pincus in their Industrial and Business Services Group. His earlier career included private equity at Citigroup Venture Capital and Sciens Capital, and investment banking at Bank of America and Prudential Securities. He holds a B.A. in government from Harvard.