Salem Investment Partners

The firm is led by four named partners: Phil Martin, Kevin Jessup, David Faris, and Brad Morton. It also lists four principals and two vice presidents on its website, suggesting that deal execution and portfolio oversight are distributed across a senior team averaging more than 25 years of experience.

Salem is licensed as a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC). That license allows it to borrow government-guaranteed funds at favorable rates and deploy them into eligible smaller businesses, which in practice means the firm can offer more flexible pricing on subordinated debt and equity than a fully private fund might.

Salem provides both. Its main product is subordinated debt, often structured as interest-only, fixed-rate notes, but it also takes minority equity co-investments — typically through nominally priced warrants or direct common equity stakes. It does not seek control positions.

Salem targets $2–10 million per portfolio company. The firm looks for businesses with at least $10 million in revenue, $1 million in EBITDA, sustainable free cash flow, and a management team willing to keep its own capital at risk alongside Salem’s.

Salem concentrates on the Southeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S., which it summarizes as 'east of the Mississippi.' The firm is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, and its deal flow is built around that regional footprint.

The firm explicitly finances private-equity-sponsored buyouts, which suggests a significant portion of its pipeline comes from sponsor relationships. It also works on management- and family-driven ownership transitions, which likely arrive through regional intermediaries, accountants, and corporate attorneys.

There is no disclosed foundation, real-asset spinout, or parallel vehicle. Salem presents itself as a single, unified investment firm structured around its SBIC license.