Case History

"Charterhouse's flexibility on the financing front coupled with its strong support of management's vision for growth set Lason on a path for success resulting in an excellent return scenario for the shareholders of the company."

-- Christopher Garcia
Former Chairman,
Lason, Inc.

At the time that Charterhouse was introduced to Lason as an investment opportunity in late 2002, the Company was a provider of outsourced services to organizations with data and document-intensive business processes. While Lason principally offered its customers relatively undifferentiated document copying services, it had begun to move towards providing more sophisticated value-added, full business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

Lason had been the product of an aggressive consolidation strategy that included over 70 acquisitions - after going public in 1996. However, due to the lack of effective acquisition integration, deficient accounting practices and an overleveraged capital structure, Lason was forced to enter a pre-arranged Chapter 11 reorganization in December 2001. Over the course of 2002, the Company brought in a turnaround management team, trimmed expenses, worked to stabilize the business and hired investment bankers to sell the Company.

Charterhouse introduced its Entrepreneur Chris Garcia to the Lason opportunity in early 2003. Previously, Chris had been the CEO of National Healthcare Resources (NHR), an outsourced medical claims management and insurance services provider, which he also founded in 1992. Chris built NHR through organic growth and acquisitions and the company was ultimately sold in 2001.

Chris lead the evaluation of the opportunity and after an extended negotiation process with Lason's creditor/shareholders and extensive due diligence by Charterhouse, helped close the transaction in August 2004.

As Executive Chairman, Chris then oversaw the execution of the Charterhouse investment thesis - that of accelerating Lason's transformation from primarily a low-value basic document processor into a focused BPO platform for delivering customized process solutions (that delivered reduced costs and increased efficiencies) to existing and new clients in the financial services, healthcare services, government, e-publishing, automotive and other sectors. Under Charterhouse's ownership, Lason's mission was to deliver progressive, industry-leading BPO solutions to its customer base by combining process and vertical market expertise with integrated, highly secure technology. By driving execution on the pre-investment strategic plan, capitalizing the Company to remove the previous financial constraints and making meaningful investments in human capital, process and technology, Charterhouse and Chris were able to significantly expand the Company's offerings and triple EBITDA in a very short period of time.

In February 2007, after a thirty-month hold period, Charterhouse completed the sale of Lason, Inc. to a strategic buyer in a transaction valued in excess of $120 million. The firm's successful exit resulted in an approximate 5x return on invested capital.