Stratford-Cambridge Group

Stratford-Cambridge Group

Stratford-Cambridge Group was founded by Stephen J. Ellis, whose 35-plus-year career includes the buyouts of both healthy and distressed industrial companies. He previously served as President and majority owner of BEHCO, Inc., an industrial distribution and manufacturing firm, until its sale. The firm operates from a single office in Plymouth, Michigan, and concentrates its acquisition efforts on the industrial heart of the Midwestern United States. SCG's strategy focuses exclusively on control buyouts of manufacturing and industrial businesses generating $1M to $5M of EBITDA. The firm structures each acquisition as a stand-alone deal, allowing high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and accredited investors to participate on a per-transaction basis rather than through a traditional blind-pool fund. Its stated model eliminates direct management fees for investors; instead, portfolio companies pay management fees to SCG. A public example of its deployment is the acquisition of Jet Edge Waterjet Systems, a Minnesota-based waterjet cutting manufacturer — a deal cited by the firm as demonstrating its partnership approach with incumbent management. The firm is led by its two named professionals: Founder and Managing Director Stephen J. Ellis and Managing Director Jay Freund, who operates from the Cleveland market. Freund joined in 2018, bringing over 25 years of lower-middle-market private equity and investment banking experience from firms including Canal Capital Partners and PNC Erieview Capital. The team's geographic presence spans two key industrial corridors — Southeast Michigan and Northeast Ohio. The acquired Jet Edge transaction, announced on the firm's website, remains the only publicly detailed portfolio event; no additional deployment figures or fund sizes are disclosed. SCG's structural differentiator lies in its investor architecture. By presenting each acquisition as a discrete co-investment opportunity, it supplies family offices and accredited individuals a direct private equity pathway that sidesteps the committed-capital model. This unbundled structure — where investors evaluate and decide on each deal — creates a sourcing and capital-call rhythm distinct from both conventional private equity funds and multi-family office platforms that pool commitments upfront.