Sorenson Capital plans to invest in 3 Utah County companies Sorenson Capital of Lehi raised a whopping $400 million in private equity funding to be invested in 20 small- and mid-sized companies in the Intermountain region over the next decade -- a group it believes is underserved by venture capitalists, company officials announced today. Three of those companies are expected to be in Utah County.

Sorenson plans to invest the $400 million -- its second private equity fund in three years -- in companies that generate between $30 million and $300 million in revenue; and have good management teams, marketing strategy and significant product growth potential, said Fraser Bullock, founder and managing director of Sorenson.

In 2004, the 30-worker company raised $250 million in its first private equity fund and invested part of that in Omniture, Provo Craft and Mity Enterprises.

"We are looking at three other Utah County companies out of 10 companies we're currently considering for investment. They must have well-established revenues and profitability, been in business for several years, possess a great management team that we can partner with and support in terms of giving them the financial resources and sales and marketing expertise they need to take things to the next level," Bullock said. He declined to identify the Utah County companies, citing ongoing talks.

Sorenson has to date invested $250 million in 16 manufacturing, technology and service companies in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, as well as California, Texas and Oregon. Six of those companies are in Utah. The Sorenson family is the fund's largest single investor.

"We typically buy a majority ownership position and provide credit facilities for the company to grow its business," Bullock said. "We've also sold some companies in our portfolio, although none so far are from Utah. Once we think they have achieved the maximum growth and profitability, then we sell to realize the value of that growth."

Bullock said Sorenson's Utah investments still have a lot of growth potential.

"Omniture is a unique investment for us, very different from our investment in Provo Craft and Mity Enterprises, where we own a majority of their stock," he said. "We're a small investor in Omniture. We bought about 2 percent of the company's equity in the first quarter of 2006, before Omniture went public in June. We made the investment in Omniture because I was on their board of directors for four years and knew its people and its market strength."

With Provo Craft, Bullock said he was attracted by its long track record of profitability and growth, strong product line and management under former CEO Robert Workman, who is now its chief creative officer. "The company has grown about 60 percent to more than $100 million in revenues since we invested in them two and a half years ago," he said.

Sorenson obtained $75 million in financing, two-thirds of which came from banks, and the remainder from the company's institutional investors to take Mity Enterprises private last July.

"We took the then publicly-traded company private because of Sarbanes-Oxley restrictions and saved Mity $1 million a year compliance fees. Greg Wilson (Mity's founder) has built a great brand that's recognized in the hospitality industry. Our investment has helped enhance its manufacturing efficiency and sales capacity," Bullock said.

Sorenson's management team consists of founding managing directors Bullock, who was COO of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics; Ron Mika, a former managing director of Bain Capital; and Tim Layton, former president and CEO of Medeco Security Locks of Roanoke, Va. and managing director of Alpine Consolidated in Alpine. Two other managing directors, Matt Lehman and Luke Sorenson, were principals in Sorenson Capital Partners I and have established private equity track records.