Operations
Sentinel makes majority-ownership investments through its equity funds and takes minority stakes through its capital solutions funds. The firm invests in management buyouts, corporate divestitures, acquisitions of family businesses, going-private transactions, and special situations.
Sentinel targets companies with enterprise values between $25 million and $250 million, and EBITDA between $5 million and $65 million. The firm has focused its investments on companies operating in the aerospace and defense, business services, consumer, food and restaurant, healthcare services, and industrial sectors.
Investment funds
Sentinel invests through a series of private limited partnerships and its investors include a variety of pension funds, endowments, and other institutional investors. Since Sentinel's establishment in 1995, it has raised seven private equity funds and two junior capital funds.
Investors in Sentinel Funds include college and university endowments, foundations, state and government retirement systems, corporate pension plans, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, investment advisors, and family offices located in the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Australia, and the Middle East.
| Fund | Vintage
Year | Committed
Capital ($m) |
| Sentinel Capital Partners VII | 2022 | $4,350 |
| Sentinel Junior Capital II | 2022 | $835 |
| Sentinel Capital Partners VI | 2018 | $2,150 |
| Sentinel Junior Capital I | 2018 | $460 |
| Sentinel Capital Partners V | 2013 | $1,300 |
| Sentinel Capital Partners IV | 2008 | $765 |
| Sentinel Capital Partners III | 2005 | $319 |
| Sentinel Capital Partners II | 1998 | $126 |
| Sentinel Capital Partners I | 1996 | $50 |
Controversy
Buffet Holdings Settlement
In 2010, the creditors of Buffets Holding sued Sentinel and its investment partner Caxton-Iseman Capital for "bilk[ing] Buffets of hundreds of millions of dollars" that led to its insolvency. Sentinel and CI Capital settled the lawsuit for more than $23 million.
TGI Fridays
Sentinel and Triartisan Capital Partners acquired TGI Fridays in 2014 from Carlson a month after the company facing a nationwide collective action wage theft lawsuit. The company tried to prevent certification of an FLSA collective by settling with individual workers that alleged unpaid wages up to $91 million. Eventually TGI Fridays settled in 2017 for over $19 million to over 28,000 workers, the largest wage and hour payout at the time. In 2018, TGI Fridays was also found to have failed to pay £59,348 to its U.K. staff.
In 2019, TGI Friday was sued in a proposed class-action lawsuit for selling potato skin chips that don't contain potato skins.
In April 2020, Sentinel's deal to take TGI Friday's public was called off due to "extraordinary market conditions" due to the coronavirus outbreak.
