Mid-sized sponsors are losing assets today that they would have won without breaking a sweat in 2021. Some go to larger platforms with deep pockets, others to family offices that can move without waiting on a committee.

Jean-Pierre Conte runs one of those family offices, and its whole shape is built to sidestep the auctions everyone else is stuck fighting through.

Stay out of the trophy auctions

Lupine Crest Capital deliberately sets its deal size below the level where sovereign wealth funds and continuation vehicles dominate the bidding. That single choice keeps the firm clear of the most overpriced corner of the market.

Its focus stays in the middle market, across healthcare, financial services, software, and industrial technology, where a smaller, faster buyer can still win on merit rather than firepower.

Underwrite at your own pace

Sponsor-led deals run on 60-to-90-day clocks set by lenders and exit calendars. A family office doesn’t answer to that stopwatch, so Conte can run reference calls without rushing the seller and understand an asset before committing to it.

The freedom to walk away matters just as much. When a deal fails to clear conservative standards, there’s no fund-level pressure forcing a yes, which is a luxury most sponsors have quietly lost.

Move without a committee

Speed is the other half of the edge. A sponsor usually needs sign-off from an investment committee before it can firm up a bid, and that extra gate can cost days a motivated seller would rather not spend.

Conte decides without that layer. His office reads the asset, runs its own reference calls, and commits on a timeline it controls, which turns speed into a bargaining chip when two bids land close together on price.

The freedom cuts the other way too. When a deal stops making sense, the firm can walk the moment the math turns, with no fund clock nudging a reluctant yes across the line. Patience and independence, taken together, are most of the advantage he holds over a fund-stage rival.

Hold without a clock

PwC notes that firms are still holding companies bought in 2017 and 2018, with the median age of exited businesses sitting around six years in the first half of 2025. Family offices that bought the same vintage simply held on and avoided selling under pressure.

Conte, founder and managing partner of Lupine Crest Capital, treats that hold flexibility as a source of value in itself. Megadeal buyers can’t copy it without taking on the very obligations they’re trying to escape.