We are continually evaluating new opportunities to purchase or invest in companies. The ideal candidate for inclusion in our group of companies looks much like this:

• The Company is a healthy, profitable, growing business that has proven itself over time and has the potential to achieve much more through continued hard work and additional investment—within its existing lines of activity and, perhaps, in some new directions.
• The Company provides goods or services that people need in their day-to-day lives.
• The management team guiding the Company can articulate a compelling vision for its future.
• The Company competes in a market with attractive long-term fundamentals, drawing on a base of assets and skills that will enable it to sustain a position of competitive advantage over time.
• From top to bottom, the Company demonstrates pride in, and a passion for, what it does. The Company’s culture is manifest through the creativity, energy and commitment its employees invest in continuously inventing new and better products or services, and then building and rebuilding a profitable business around them.

Situations not well suited for Axel Johnson Inc. include start-ups, turnarounds, “steady as she goes” annuities and cash harvesting. While companies in all these situations need supportive owners, they are not in line with our holdings objectives. We place capital into growing businesses whose prospects we are able to assess on the basis of an informed point of view, and then we help build them for the future.