Marc Walinsky

Marc Walinsky is a co-founder and partner of JWI Capital, LLC, a Cleveland-area private equity firm formed in 2009 to acquire and operate manufacturing and value-added distribution companies with up to $50 million in revenue across the Great Lakes region. He runs the firm alongside partners William Isaac and Mark Jantzen, a group that collectively brings more than 60 years of operating and investing experience. JWI positions itself against the traditional PE model by offering patient capital and a hands-on, operationally focused approach to growing micro-cap businesses.

Before co-founding JWI, Walinsky spent more than a decade in private equity–sponsored buyouts and investments, working across the entire capital structure — from underwriting senior secured debt to making direct equity investments. From 2000 through 2009 he was a Director of Safeguard International Fund, L.P., a $305 million private equity fund focused on advanced industrial technology companies. There he led the fund's investments in AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. (AEX: AMG), Timminco Limited (TSX: TIM), International Fiber Corporation, and Sudamin Metals Recycling Ltd.

Walinsky began his career at Bank of America Securities, LLC in Chicago, where he focused on underwriting leveraged loans and high-yield debt to support leveraged buyouts. He continued at Bank of America Capital Investors, a $400 million captive mezzanine debt and private equity arm of Bank of America Corporation.

He holds a Master of Accounting and a Bachelor of Business Administration, both from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

• What he backs: Privately held manufacturing and value-added distribution businesses with $5–$50 million in revenue and up to $5 million in EBITDA ($1–$3 million preferred) — micro-cap and lower-middle-market companies that larger PE firms overlook.
• Deal types: Acquisitions of privately held businesses, management buyouts, and growth equity; JWI invests in both majority and minority situations.
• Patient capital: In their own words, JWI provides "a flexible investment structure that is tailored to the objectives of the selling shareholder" and has "no time limit on our investment period" — an explicit contrast to fund-life-driven PE.
• Operational value-add: "Unlike the traditional private equity model JWI's partners will execute an operationally focused approach to actively advise management to help improve the growth, EBITDA and cash flow performance of its acquisitions."
• What makes them say yes: Demonstrated ability to generate consistent revenue from existing customers, clear competitive advantages with organic growth opportunities, a defensible market niche, and operation in an industry with favorable dynamics or that is highly fragmented.
• Geographic discipline: Because of the active-management model, targets should sit within ~300 miles of Northeast Ohio.