When the owners, stockholders, and managers who have created these smaller companies join the Levco Group, we make it our business to understand what they most desire: the chance to bring their ventures to the next level of fruition, be it through divestiture for estate planning or personal liquidity, recapitaliztion for growth or modernization, merger for repositioning or distribution— or any one of many other customized strategies. Levco Group understands that our partners have everything at stake: the health and reputations of their creations-their businesses. We get to know each business and each principal precisely because each case demands its own methods and arrangements. We’re not in business to dismantle the very entities we wish to aid; we want to work towards mutually satisfying ends. Destructive tactics have no place in the Levco methodology: the considerations of a company’s name and its employees, vendors, distributors, and customers must all be included in the sort of genuinely cooperative ventures we wish to structure.

If mergers, divestitures, and recapitalizations have too often in the past spelled the beginning of harmful micro-management and meddling in the running of companies with good operating histories, it is in general I because the financial groups responsible did not know the businesses intimately enough to recognize their strengths, and tried to fix what was not broken. Intervention for its own sake is a deadly hazard in our field, and we at Levco Group are on our guard against it. In most cases, Levco does not seek to participate in the day-to-day management of a portfolio com-pany; rather, we prefer to remain active and engaged at the board level.