Brightstar Family,

I hope that you and yours have enjoyed a healthy, safe and joyous holiday season.

I want to share some brief thoughts with you as we enter the new year and close the book on an unprecedented 2020. Last year was one for the history books with a true black swan event shutting large parts of the global economy and isolating people from their families, friends and co-workers. But, despite the challenges of working amid a global pandemic, 2020 was a milestone year for Brightstar Capital Partners. We’ve shown substantial growth as a firm across a number of fronts, and our team’s resiliency and ability to use our collective intellectual capital to support and continue to grow our portfolio companies has been extraordinary.

Transactions: While adjusting to a remote environment, we completed two platform acquisitions and two add-on acquisitions for our existing portfolio companies, bringing the total transactions completed since our inception to 21. Our team sprinted through 2020’s finish line, closing two acquisitions in the final weeks of the year. We acquired Amerit Fleet Solutions as our second platform investment in Fund II, and Bobcat Southwest as an add-on acquisition that bolsters our InfraServ platform. You can read about these acquisitions here and here. Our deal pipeline is robust as we move forward.

Assets Under Management: We have raised approximately $2.0 billion of committed capital since inception, including exceeding our target with more than $1.0 billion raised for Brightstar Capital Partners Fund II.

Offices: In the past 12 months, Brightstar enhanced our distributed model by opening permanent offices in Palm Beach, FL, Nashville, TN, and Orange County, CA to support our existing headquarters in New York and our offices in St. Louis and Denver. We also set up a temporary office in Greenwich, CT.

Human Talent: 10 impressive new colleagues came on board as Brightstar expanded to more than 40 employees across the firm.

To start 2021, Michael Drexler joined us as a Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer based out of our Palm Beach office. In this new role, Michael will work closely with the entire Brightstar team, advising the firm on its long-term growth strategy. He brings a wealth of experience from his prior role as Managing Director and Global Head of Strategy and Business Transformation at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

In June, Michael Singer joined us as a Managing Director and serves on the board of Amerit Fleet Solutions and Global Resale. In his prior roles, Michael led and was the executive sponsor for numerous acquisitions, their respective integrations and portfolio sale processes. He most recently was the Chief Strategy Officer for Brightstar Corporation, where he also served on the boards of several of its portfolio companies.

Jesse Rosenfeld joined Brightstar to kick off 2021 as a Principal focusing on fundraising and Investor Relations. Jesse has nearly two decades of experience in the industry, and comes to us from Riva Ridge Capital Management, where he led fundraising and investor relations efforts for a private investment firm specializing in complex, overlooked or misunderstood situations in the leveraged company universe.

In addition to adding new colleagues, we are happy to announce several promotions. Jonathan Quigley, Managing Director, will add the title of Chief Network Officer. His expanded responsibilities include overseeing Brightstar’s deal sourcing strategy. Christy Lukach, Peter Smith and Craig Thomas were all promoted to Principal from Vice President, and Maggie Zerman was promoted to Vice President from Fund Controller.

We’re expecting even more success in 2021 as we continue to roll up our sleeves, bring on new partners, forge new and closer relationships and lay the groundwork for a post-COVID recovery. I want to thank all of you for your continued support.

Andrew Weinberg
Founder & CEO