TriWest Taps the Rockies And Western Canada –

Acting on a belief that Western Canadian family businesses are ripe for the picking, and a new fund is poised to take advantage of this untapped market.

Late last month, TriWest Capital Partners held a final closing on its debut fund, TriWest Capital Growth Fund Limited Partnership No. 1. The $57 million fund will focus on buyouts in Western Canada and the Rocky Mountain states, said Lorne Jacobson, president of TriWest. Mr. Jacobson said his firm will invest in the manufacturing, service and distribution industries and limit transaction values to between $10 million and $25 million.

TriWest, based in Calgary, kicked off fund raising last spring.

The firm believes family successions will be an important source of buyout opportunities in Canada, Mr. Jacobson said, adding that there is not as much competition for deals there as in the U.S. middle market.

Mr. Jacobson said all the fund’s limited partners are Canadian institutions, including the Province of British Columbia and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Founding partners at TriWest contributed approximately 25% of the capital to the fund. Mr. Jacobson described the fund’s terms as standard but declined to ellaborate.

TriWest founding partners are Mr. Jacobson, Ronald Jackson and Cody Church. Mr. Church worked at New York private equity firm EXOR America for two years before joining the TriWest effort. Mr. Jackson, who Mr. Jacobson said would be the operational point man for TriWest, was president of Burns Food, a Canadian food processing and distribution company. Mr. Jacobson was executive vice president of Burns Food.