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even in deals of great difficulty, to try to stay in there and make the company work as long as possible. That sort of brings me to the question of what is it that makes AEA special? You say there's no magic to it--anybody could do this--and yet, in a way, throughout the book is the notion that people who belong to AEA are very special people, are people who are not likely to give up easily and are people with a certain degree of ethical practice.

Not only that, but they have expertise going in. Not any Tom, Dick and Harry can come along and sell his company to AEA. It's that AEA looks for “niche” opportunities. If they'll see something in the way of a small company that seems to have an ideal product and might need more capital, then they'll make a move to try to bring that company into the fold. But there's a lot of expertise on selection, on checking and testing to make sure that it's the right kind of an investment.

Then, in terms of the board of the company, a lot of these people never had any outside counsel at all, so you bring in some pretty heavy hitters that can help direct the company that you've invested in and enhance it by the people who are in the investment group in AEA. So there's something in it for the person who sells it to you, and keeps twenty per cent-- because he not only gets his money for the eighty per cent, which is a handsome payment, but he gets the participation that might triple or quadruple his twenty per cent investment.

So the shaping of it was in the hands of Carl Hess--now in the hands of Vincent Mai, and there the effort is made to buy quality and to be sure you get something that is going to grow, in a growth area. So just any situation to acquire something wouldn't appeal to AEA at all. It has to be very special.