Finance & Legal

First Marblehead provides outsourcing services for private, non-governmental education lending in the United States. The company helps meet the growing demand for private education loans by providing national and regional financial institutions and educational institutions, as well as businesses and other enterprises, with an integrated suite of design, implementation and securitization services for student loan programs tailored to meet the needs of their respective customers, students, employees and members. Its clients include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Wachovia and PNC. It also provides education financing programs to corporations, such as CVS, AAA and General Motors. Founded in 1991, First Marblehead is headquartered in Boston.

Berkshire Partners, headquartered in Boston, Mass., is a private equity investment firm that invests in private companies across a range of industries and supports management teams who want to invest in and grow the businesses they operate. The firm looks to invest in established companies with enterprise values between $75 million and $1 billion, located in industries with favorable dynamics for sustainable earnings growth. It invests from $30 million to $250 million in each portfolio company. Berkshire's investments range across North America, Europe, and Australasia and its portfolio companies operate in international markets. It focuses on six sectors, including industrial manufacturing, consumer products, transportation, communications, business services, and retailing and related services. Founded in 1984, it has invested in 80 companies with total acquisition value of more than $12 billion.

Heritage Partners is one of the leading private investment firm specializing in the acquisition and equity-based recapitalization of private, family owned businesses. Since 1987, the Partners have assembled a diversified portfolio of nearly 50 investments with revenues in the billions of dollars. Heritage Partners portfolio is divided into three funds, the Heritage Fund I, Heritage Fund II and Heritage Fund III. The firm's fundamental objective is to invest preferred and common stock, on a minority or majority basis, in mature, successful companies with revenues of $50 to $500 million. Industries of particular interest include healthcare, consumer products, food and beverage, distribution, light manufacturing and media. Heritage Partners is headquartered in Boston.