The Minnetonka company Shock Doctor has just passed into the hands of its third private equity owner in the past 11 years, and the managing partner of the new owner couldn’t be more excited about the growth opportunity he intends to nurture.

And in talking about it, he sounded a lot like the partners of the last two private equity owners of this company, who bought the business with a similar plan for growth — and achieved their goals.

Building growth companies isn’t the kind of thing the private equity industry usually gets much credit for doing, but it should. The story of Shock Doctor shows there are other ways for the smart guys to make money in private equity besides leveraging an investment with a ton of debt or squeezing costs out of a company.  Read More…