Chris Pummill

Chris Pummill is a Managing Director at Mason Wells, a Milwaukee-based private equity firm founded in 1998. Mason Wells reports $2.4 billion raised across five independent buyout funds and invests in four core sectors: consumer packaged goods, engineered products and services, outsourced business services, and packaging materials and converting.

Pummill joined Mason Wells in 2011. Public profile data shows he progressed from Associate to Vice President, Director, and then Managing Director beginning in January 2022. His LinkedIn profile describes him as a private equity investor focused on specialty chemicals and materials and consumer sectors.

Before Mason Wells, Pummill worked at Western Reserve Partners, first as an analyst and later as an associate, and was also an associate intern at Thoma Bravo while completing graduate school. MarketScreener lists his education as a 2005 undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and a 2011 MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Pummill has been tied to several Mason Wells portfolio boards and transactions, including EastPoint Sports, Buffalo Games, Pacon, AWT Labels & Packaging, Reliance Label Solutions, IDENTCO, Industrial Labels Holdings, Trebnick Systems, and Calvary Industries.

• Mason Wells’ strategy is people- and partnership-led: the firm says, "We don’t just buy businesses, we invest in people," and emphasizes long-term relationships, trust, collaboration, and partnering with senior management teams that invest alongside the firm.
• The firm focuses on profitable lower middle-market platforms with $25 million to $300 million of revenue and at least $5 million of EBITDA; tuck-ins may be smaller.
• Sector focus includes consumer packaged goods, engineered products and services, outsourced business services, and packaging materials and converting. Pummill’s own LinkedIn profile highlights specialty chemicals and materials and consumer.
• Mason Wells prefers Midwest-headquartered platform companies, while tuck-in acquisitions can be national or international.
• Investment fit centers on strong market position, limited customer concentration, barriers to entry, self-starting management, product/customer/end-market growth potential, acquisition opportunities, attractive capex paybacks, and operational improvement levers.
• Pummill’s quoted deal commentary points to businesses with strong management, technical/product differentiation, profitable growth, and consolidation opportunities. In the IDENTCO/Reliance transaction, he said there was "a long runway for growth and consolidation in the durable industrial labels sector."