Colin Taylor

Colin Taylor is Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner of aPriori Capital Partners, a private equity fund manager created in 2014 through the spin-off of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners from Credit Suisse. The firm states that it focuses on middle-market leveraged buyouts in the United States and Europe and manages private equity funds including DLJ Merchant Banking Partners IV, L.P. and Gamma, L.P.

Before the spin-out, Taylor was a managing director at Credit Suisse with responsibility for the DLJ Merchant Banking Partners private equity business within Credit Suisse Asset Management. He served on the DLJ MBP investment and operating committees and, according to his firm biography, helped invest more than $2 billion of equity in landmark private equity transactions in Europe and elsewhere.

Taylor joined DLJ Merchant Banking Partners in 2000 when Credit Suisse and DLJ merged, after initially joining Credit Suisse in London in 1990. Earlier at Credit Suisse, he was head of the Power and Energy industry group in Europe, a senior member of the CSFB European M&A team, and co-chair of the Managing Director Election Committee. Before Credit Suisse, he worked at IBM Corporation as a sales executive, system engineer, and financial controller.

He has served as a director of Nycomed, Fougera, Grohe, Guala Closures, Safilo, Neuf Telecom, Gala Group, Inspiring Learning, and other private companies. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Commerce with honors from Queen's University in Canada, where he is also listed as being on the advisory board of the School of Business.

• aPriori describes its approach as a "rigorous and disciplined investment process" built around sector-specific, long-term investment expertise and post-investment value creation.
• The firm targets companies with enterprise values between $100 million and $5 billion.
• aPriori looks for strong management teams, attractive growth prospects, recurring or predictable revenue, strong cash flow, barriers to entry, and opportunities for strategic improvements, acquisitions, operational improvements, or accelerated growth.
• The firm primarily seeks majority/control investments alongside management, while selectively making minority partnership investments.
• Sector focus is concentrated in retail and consumer, business services, healthcare, energy, and industrials.
• The stub data describing Taylor as an angel investor focused on seed rounds does not match the verified sources; the firm is a private equity manager focused on middle-market buyouts.