Thomas Karlson

Thomas Karlson General Information

Biography

Mr. Thomas Karlson is a Co-Founder & serves as Partner and Principal at Rural American Fund. He served as Board Member at Aquatrols. His responsibilities at the Firm include deal generation and marketing, structuring and negotiating new investments and exits, portfolio company management along with fundraising and investor relations. Mr. Karlson began his business career in 1985. His background includes nearly 30 years of advising privately-held companies on value-enhancing strategies with a focus on increasing business value through strategic acquisitions. Mr. Karlson is an entrepreneur who has founded and successfully grown two (and exited one) investment banking businesses. In 1991, he co-founded Vine Street Partners, a boutique investment banking firm, in Oak Brook, IL. From 1991 through Vine Street's sale to Century Business Services, Inc. (NYSE: CBZ) in 1999, the firm completed approximately $3.0 billion in financings and built a strong presence in strategic, buy-side merger and acquisition advisory engagements. In 1997, Mr. Karlson developed an acquisition program for Becker Underwood (BU), a specialty Ag chemical and biological products company, headquartered in Ames, IA. The assignment for BU spanned more than a decade. It involved contacting in excess of 100 strategic acquisition targets which introduced Mr. Karlson to the Ag industry and to Messrs. Underwood and Becker. Mr. Karlson's 10+ years of advisory work with BU resulted in seven successful acquisitions, an equity recapitalization and numerous strategic and industry contacts still being leveraged by Mr. Karlson and RAF today. In 2004, upon Mr. Karlson's departure from Century Capital Group / Vine Street Partners, Mr. Karlson moved back into an entrepreneurial role through his formation of River North Partners, LLC, a merger and acquisition advisory firm focused on niche markets and buy-side advisory services. Driven by consolidation and change in the seed industry, Mr. Karlson focused River North's activities on Ag and made direct calls on numerous Agribusinesses to get independent owners' views of their strategic alternatives and overall Ag markets. These interactions and favorable tailwinds in the agriculture industry galvanized Mr. Karlson's belief that opportunities in lower-middle market Agribusiness were growing even stronger. Mr. Karlson also realized that the Ag industry as a whole was grossly underserved by private equity capital, which led to the opportunistic creation of the Rural American Fund in December 2007. Prior to Mr. Karlson's entrepreneurial activities, which started in his late 20's, Mr. Karlson worked at Bankers Trust Company (now part of Deutsche Bank) and Merrill Lynch. Mr. Karlson is on the Board of Directors of La Crosse Seed and Technology Crops International. He previously served on the Board of Directors of Seeds 2000. He also served on the Board of Trustees of the Lincolnshire/Riverwoods, IL Fire Protection District, a position he held for more than 10 years. Mr. Karlson received a BS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago.