About Us
Launched in April 2008, Staley Capital is led by Renny Smith and Amit Basak.
The Staley Capital team has developed and executed a highly successful investment strategy that matches diverse private investment and operating skills to its investment focus.
Renny Smith has invested nearly $500MM of capital with approximately a 3x return multiple. Renny was a partner at Thomas H. Lee Partners for a decade and in 1999 Co-Founded TH Lee Putnam Ventures (“THLPV”).
Amit Basak brings a combination of private equity and deep sales, marketing and general management experience as an executive in business services companies. Until March 2008, Amit served as Interim COO and CFO Affinity Express, a business process outsourcer of graphics production services. Prior to Affinity Express, he was General Manager at ClickSquared a multi-channel, outsourced direct marketing services firm and the fastest growing private company in New England in 2005. Amit joined after a THLPV-led recapitalization of the business and led the sales, implementation and growth of multi-million dollar, recurring relationships with Fortune 100 clients in new industry verticals.
Staley Capital has two operating partners, Bernie Andrews and Phillip Riese, and two Special Advisors, Alfredo "Fred" Ayala and Ramanan Raghavendran. These individuals bring deep domain and functional expertise developed over decades as senior executives in their respective industries, proven abilities to create value as executives, investors and board members, a genuine interest and passion for advising management teams and long histories of working with the Staley Capital team. Bernie is a former COO of Montgomery Ward and EVP of Operations and Marketing at Circuit City. Phillip spent 18 years in a variety of roles at American Express and ultimately served as President of the Consumer Card Group. Fred is the former CEO and Chairman of eTelecare, a leader in outsourcing and offshoring for call center operations. Ramanan is a Managing Partner of Kubera Partners and a Senior Partner at THLPV.
Renny’s investment experience and Amit’s investing and operating experience in combination with the industry expertise of our Operating Partners and Special Advisors, uniquely positions the firm to source, evaluate and add value to growth services businesses.
We know outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams can access numerous sources of capital in today’s marketplace, but we offer leaders of business services companies a different kind of long-term, value-added investor for the following reasons:
Investment Focus
- We focus exclusively on business services companies – especially technology-enabled business services companies with a global delivery footprint and explosive growth potential.
- We do not pursue investments where we don’t understand the vertical markets and business problems that a company addresses.
Track Record as value added investors and operators
- We have invested successfully in our target companies by developing a clear set of criteria to evaluate an investment and to measure value creation over time.
- We have operated as executives in the trenches, driving sales and refining product marketing, building account management teams and making investments in technology and global operations teams.
Flexible Transaction Structure
- We invest growth equity to fund expansion and investments in key areas such as sales and marketing, operations and technology.
- We do buy-outs and/or recapitalizations to provide liquidity to existing shareholders, using prudent amounts of debt financing.
Investment Philosophy and Approach
- We are in business to create value.
- We form strong relationships with the management teams we back based on mutual respect and integrity.
- We stay focused on measuring outcomes of key priorities and initiatives objectively.
- We are mindful of our own areas of expertise and the areas where we do not have expertise - "we know what we don’t know."
- We aspire to be trusted advisors -- asking tough questions, proposing new ideas, and focusing on “doing the right things right.”
