In June 2003, The Halifax Group partnered with Soil Safe's original founder and President, Walter Kennel, by acquiring a majority stake through a leveraged recapitalization transaction. Kennel achieved partial liquidity, while still maintaining a meaningful ownership stake in the business.

Soil Safe, founded in 1989 and headquartered in Columbia, MD, provides environmental services that include the treatment and placement of soils that contain low levels of non-hazardous hydrocarbons for real estate, infrastructure development and industrial customers in the Mid-Atlantic region. Soil Safe processes lightly contaminated soil into a safe, high-quality construction material determined to be clean by state regulators and appropriate for reuse in a variety of industrial project applications. The company has facilities in Brandywine, MD, Logan, NJ, and Adelanto, CA.

Throughout the course of the partnership, The Halifax Group was instrumental in professionalizing the management of the company and providing strategic guidance, resulting in profits increasing nearly three-fold over our investment period. During this time, Soil Safe launched numerous initiatives that helped propel the company's growth including recruiting key executive talent, transitioning to larger facilities to augment capacity, and refining its pricing strategy. With The Halifax Group's guidance, the company also successfully acquired a facility in California to establish its West Coast operations.

In September 2005, The Halifax Group and Kennel successfully exited their investment in Soil Safe through a 100% sale to American Capital Strategies, Ltd. (NASDAQ: ACAS) for $114.5 million. Executing our shared strategic plan allowed Kennel to earn proceeds well in excess of the value that he garnered from the initial Halifax investment.