Colette Nakhoul

Smith Whiley and Co. is an institutional investment advisory firm specializing in identifying, structuring, closing, managing and liquidating private equity and mezzanine debt investments. Smith Whiley & Company was formed through a strategic relationship with Aetna, Inc., one of the first such alliances in the investment management industry. Black Enterprise Magazine ranks Smith Whiley among the largest African-American owned private equity firms in the country. Smith Whiley specializes in providing mezzanine debt and private equity to small and middle market companies nationwide. The team collectively has a track record in excess of almost 200 years in the asset class, including $21 billion in managed assets and $9 billion in new investments. Smith Whiley currently manages three mezzanine and private equity partnerships called the SW Pelham Funds. The firm invests in companies with enterprise values of $25 million to $250 million, and invests $3 million to $15 million per transaction, with the ability to arrange larger transactions. Smith Whiley invests in the following sectors: food and beverage, consumer products and services, business services, health care products and services, industrial products and services, and communications and media technology. Smith Whiley has managed in excess of $500 million in alternative investments since its formation in 1994, and also maintains an office in Evanston, IL. A recent newspaper report stated that the firm has as cleared out of its downtown Hartford offices, and that the company was fined $1,800 in 2013 by the state of CT Department of Labor for failing to pay wages to six employees.