Pacesetter/MVHC (P/MVHC) is a holding company with 100% ownership in three specialized Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs). P/MVHC with its nearly 80 corporate shareholders is the largest corporate owned specialized family of SBICs in the country dedicated to achieving competitive returns and providing long-term expansion and/or acquisition capital to well-managed growing businesses owned and led by mostly Hispanic-American, African-American, Asian-Indian, Native-American and Asian-American company builders. The SBICs have total assets of nearly $200 million including over 50 highly competitive Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) located primarily in the Southwest. During the past decade, P/MVHC has provided over $250MM in support of its mission: providing growth capital to create and build larger and more competitive small businesses in mostly underserved markets.
One of the SBICs, MESBIC Ventures, Inc. (MVI), holds the distinction of being the longest-standing specialized SBIC in the nation. MVI was established in 1970 as a social experiment designed to improve the pool of available capital and spawn the growth of small business ownership for MBEs. PCG’s major sources of capital include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fairview Capital Partners, Progress Investment Management, Bank One/Chase, Washington Mutual, Sears, Roebuck & Co., The Sun Company, Oklahoma Capital Investment Board, ExxonMobil, Texas Instruments, IBM, and Frito Lay.
PCG's pioneering spirit has earned it the distinction of having helped create several of the nation's most successful minority-owned companies. These include Siméus Foods International, the largest Black-owned food processor in the country; Star Concessions, the largest Hispanic owned airport food concessionaire in the US founded by Gilbert Aranza; Carleton Construction, North Texas’ largest African-American builder of multi-family housing led by Printice Gary; Axes Technology, a global provider of mission critical software and hardware solutions led by Paul Pandian, PCG’s first Asian-Indian serial entrepreneur; and First American Communications Enterprise, Inc. and KTEN Television, L.P., both companies led by Tom Johnson, the nation’s leading Native-American entrepreneur in broadcast properties and wireless communication. These are prime examples of our companies based in Texas.
We also provided the equity capital which enabled the late Maynard Jackson to own the TGI Friday's located in the Atlanta airport. Radio One and Z Spanish, former PCG investments, are examples of two of the nation's most successful ethnic-focused broadcasting companies. Radio One is one of a handful of African-American companies to go public, and the only publicly-traded company founded and chaired by an African-American woman, Cathy Hughes.
We were a founding investor of Midwest Stamping, a St. Louis-based automotive industry supplier founded by Ron Thompson. Midwest Stamping had been ranked among the nation's largest African-American owned manufacturing companies in the Midwest until it was acquired by The Brown Corporation of America in 2005. Erlang Technology Inc. is an example of another St. Louis-based investment wherein PCG served as the founding institutional investor. Founded by Paul Min, a proven Asian-American entrepreneur, Erlang is a fabless semiconductor company developing key components for high-speed communications. New Century Packaging (NCP) is a Kansas-based distributor of flexible packaging materials that ranks as one of the state's largest African-American owned companies.
Today, PCG remains poised to continue its leadership role in under-served markets and advancing supplier diversity among major corporations and government entities for over 50 highly competitive MBEs.