William E. Simon & Sons Private Equity

Specialty: Later stage manufacturing, logistics, real estate, specialty retailing, shipping, oil and gas

Capital Under Management: $500 million

Amount Invested in 1996: $50 million

William E. Simon & Sons Private Equity is the second largest venture capital organization in Los Angeles and has one of the most varied portfolios in town.

The names on the fund’s investment roster Wolfgang Puck Food Companies Inc., Pacific Precision Metals, Creative Optics Inc. and Chapdelaine Corporate Securities illustrate its spectrum.

The firm was founded in New Jersey in 1988 by former U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon. The L.A. office was established two years later because of investment activities in the West and across the Pacific.

And things have gone well as of late. “It’s been difficult not to do well in the country’s economic climate,” said William E. Simon, Jr., executive director of William E. Simon & Sons, LLC, the parent company. “The last six months have been the best ever for us in terms of investments which have matured and new acquisitions we’ve made. There have been no dogs here.”

Last week, two of its investments went public. One was an oil field services company which brought in a 40 percent return on the firm’s original investment seven years ago, Simon explained.

In May, the firm bought an equity stake in an Indiana flexible staffing firm called Corporate Staffing Resources. The Simon group is convinced that flexible staffing is set to grow a from a $39 million a year industry in 1996 to $69 million a year by 2000. The acquisition is expected to be the first step toward a national network of such businesses.

The elder Simon continues to play an active role in managing the firm, along with sons William and Peter. The trio oversees a team of managers that run the equity fund, a municipal securities group, a capital markets group, a Hong Kong-based merchant bank and a real estate investment group.

Wade Daniels