Steve Balistreri

Steve Balistreri is a Managing Director at Blackthorne Partners, Ltd., a private equity firm focused on small businesses in the Upper Midwest. The firm describes its plan as investing in small businesses and helping them grow by identifying niche companies, applying its investment criteria, and providing capital and strategic support.

Balistreri’s operating background includes leadership of Sun Cleaning Systems, where, as president and CEO, he grew the company from $100,000 to $10 million in sales and added more than 600 employees. Before Blackthorne, he was president of Legacy Advisors LLC, a business-turnaround consulting firm, and executive vice president of finance and national accounts at Marsden Holdings LLC, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based security and facility-services company with $210 million in revenue.

He was also Founding Director and Chairman of Spring Bank of Brookfield, Wisconsin, a startup bank that opened in September 2008. According to his Blackthorne biography, his team raised $12.5 million in initial capital and the bank’s assets later grew to $300 million.

Balistreri holds a master’s degree in finance from the Kogod School of Business at American University and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Marquette University. His firm biography also notes community involvement on the boards of SHARP Literacy Inc. and Midwest Business Brokers & Intermediaries.

• Blackthorne’s stated thesis is: “Invest in small businesses, and help them grow.”
• The firm looks for companies with a minimum of $1 million EBITDA and $5 million to $20 million in revenue.
• Blackthorne targets companies where ownership is transitioning out of the business or where the company needs a capital infusion to make a step-change in growth.
• The firm prefers essential products or services, stable industries, strong reputations, and businesses that are less vulnerable to economic volatility.
• Sector focus is concentrated in outsourced business services, light manufacturing, and value-added distribution.
• The firm says it screens many opportunities and typically narrows them to “one or two investments per year.”
• Post-transaction, Blackthorne focuses on leadership, a 100-day plan, better financial systems, sales/marketing initiatives, organic growth, add-on acquisitions, and eventual exit timing.