Carousel Capital announced today that its investment in AGDATA was named “Buyout of the Year” for 2010 at the recent Southern Capital Conference held at the Ritz Carlton Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Georgia. Carousel invested in AGDATA in 2006 and announced earlier in the year that it has sold AGDATA’s MedData medical data business to TransUnion LLC of Chicago. In February, the remaining Agdata division was sold to a group led by SFW Capital Partners, a New York private equity firm. Together, the two divisions provided outsourced database management, marketing program administration, data collection and data analysis services. Founded in 1985, AGDATA is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Carousel Capital partnered with the CEO of AGDATA, Verl Purdy, on the original acquisition. Mr. Purdy remained Chairman and CEO of the Company during the course of Carousel’s investment and maintained a significant ownership stake in the business.
The Southern Capital Conference is an annual meeting where institutional investors and their advisors come to build and extend relationships with private equity firms from across the Southeastern United States. This year’s conference was attended by 50+ Southeastern-based private equity firms with more than $20 billion under management, as well as more than 30 institutional investors from across the United States. The conference is hosted by the Atlanta Venture Forum, the largest trade association for private equity investors in the Southeast.
“We are very excited to accept this award on behalf of Carousel as well as Verl Purdy and his management team,” said Charles S. Grigg, Managing Partner of Carousel Capital. “The success of this transaction during such a difficult economic environment demonstrates the strength of the company’s competitive position in its markets as well as the successful growth resulting from internal opportunities and acquisitions,” he said. “We could not be happier about the outcome of this transaction.”
Carousel Capital is a private investment firm that invests in companies located in the Southeastern United States. Carousel’s investor base includes institutional investors and an elite group of more than 100 current and former CEOs with significant operating experience. Since its inception, Carousel has invested in 28 companies primarily in three targeted growth sectors: business services; consumer products and services; and healthcare services.
