A family office is more than a cost-effective solution to managing wealth. When done properly, it provides customized services and support that fosters a shared experience of wealth stewardship.
Our Objective
What We Believe In – Our Core Values
Our principles are part of our investment process.
Thoughtful Stewardship
First Landing Capital is committed to the highest professional standards as fiduciaries of our clients’ capital and our firm. We strive to achieve common goals through aligned interests and strong partnerships.
Commitment to Excellence
We are focused on excellence in all aspects of our business, inclusive of investment performance, client relationships, and operational excellence. We continuously reflect, improve our approach, and mitigate risk to be the best stewards and fulfill our mission to our clients and colleagues.
Collaborative Teamwork
We take a constructive, team-oriented approach to bring to bear our expertise, creativity, and network to reach solutions with rigor, empathy, and efficiency.
People Leadership
People are the core of what we do and who we are. We invest time, effort, and resources into developing our colleagues at all levels of our firm. In our effort to develop the next generation of leaders and investors, we empower a diverse group of colleagues across teams and tenures, and cultivate caring, exceptional professionals who create inclusive and respectful environments for all colleagues.
Entrepreneurship
We welcome innovation and forward-thinking, and create an environment where strategic risks and new ideas are celebrated. We understand that our world is constantly evolving and requires agility in our approach. We are curious to grow and deepen our business and embrace problems with ingenuity, strategic thought, and action.
Our Team
Matt is the founder of First Capital Landing, which serves as an investment vehicle for both family offices and select outside investors. His professional experience extends over 20 years of investing in both private and public markets, as well as advising in M&A and equity transactions.
Prior founding First Landing, Matt worked at Shamrock Capital, the investing arm of the Disney Family Office where he had broad responsibility. While there he worked on direct investments as part of the $1.25 billion Activist Value Team which took large positions in public companies. As part of that team he worked extensively with boards and senior management teams on strategic growth and value creation initiatives, as well as numerous financing and change-of-control transactions. He worked on over $600m of investments and helped facilitate the sale of multiple companies through activist Board interaction. On the operating side, he worked with the CFO to write quarterly investor updates, as well as the annual LP investor presentation.
He was also a principal at Chapman Capital, a $300m long/short hedge fund, had numerous roles in corporate development with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, and started his career as an investment banking analyst at Bear Stearns.
Outside of his professional commitments, Matt is actively involved with various not-for-profit organizations including the American Legion and the Portsmouth, Virginia Historic Preservation Committee. He is a member of both The Army Navy Club of Washington D.C. as well as the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance from the University of Southern California (magna cum laude) and was a Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal diver in Coronado, California.
Prior to working at First Landing Capital, Tom spent 11 years with WayPoint Capital Partners where he co-managed private equity investments. WayPoint Capital Partners is the direct private equity affiliate of Privet Capital, a family investment office for a cable and satellite entrepreneur with over $2.5 billion in assets under management.
WayPoint’s mandate was to provide entrepreneurs and family-owned businesses with the expertise and resources of a traditional fund sponsor, but without a traditional fund’s limitations. Typical initial investment ranged from $10 million to $30 million with a focus on partnering with entrepreneurs across the middle market healthcare, logistics and business services sectors to grow their businesses both organically and through add-on acquisitions.
Previously Tom was a Director at Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s Private Equity Fund for five years where he focused on new platform investments, as well as creating value from challenged portfolio assets within the media, communications and information industries.
Tom started his career as an analyst at Bear Stearns’ Mergers & Acquisitions Group, advising third party clients on transactions across a broad array of industries.
Tom holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Outside of work Tom can frequently be found fishing on his boat off the coast of Miami.
Kent graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce at University of Virginia with a BS in Commerce concentrating in Finance and Management Information Systems in 1989. He started his career in software development (database design) then transitioned into Investment Banking (biotechnology and health care). He then went to earn his MBA at Darden where he was a Shermet Scholar and was awarded the Faculty Award for Academic Excellence.
He returned to Investment Banking (Lehman Brothers) which led to a career in Investment Management. He formed a hedge fund at Atlantic Capital that was ranked number 5 in the country in 1999. He then transitioned into venture investing by working for Trader Ventures (AutoTrader, Inc.). After venture investing, he was recruited to form the Shamrock Activist Fund for the Disney family in Los Angeles and helped raise $1.5 billion. He successfully ran the fund before being recruited to start the Corporate Development team at Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA) Group. During his 14 years at PRA Group, he led all acquisitions, doubling the footprint and revenues of the company and leading their expansion into 17 countries while also diversifying then divesting of fee service businesses. He consequently returned more capital to investors than the base business when calculated using total capital and internal rates of return. His time at PRA Group was highlighted by winning the 2014 Atlas M&A Deal of the Year with his $1.3 billion acquisition of Aktiv Capital based in Oslo, Norway. When the new CEO decided to de-emphasize the importance of Corporate Development, he formed an investor group to inject capital into Vertican Technologies and became the CFO and the Investor Group representative on the Board in November 2021.
When not crunching the numbers, Kent is an avid tennis player and a better-than-decent golfer.
John was the interim Chief Financial Officer of Corrum Capital Management, a $1b+ investment firm headquartered in Charlotte. He was also the CFO of Palmyra Capital Advisors, a long/short hedge fund, as well as the Controller and Risk Manager of Chapman Capital an activist hedge fund with $300 million of AUM. John started his career with KPMG in Chicago.
Jake is an Associate at First Landing Capital and is responsible for helping to source and evaluate potential investments. This includes supporting deal evaluation through building detailed financial models, conducting in-depth research on industries and markets, assisting in the due diligence and synthesizing results. Besides interacting with investment banks, private equity firms, and senior lenders, Jake is responsible for performing company valuations, building financial models, and preparing investment presentations,
He was previously a summer analyst at Kapital Management where he conducted in-depth research into the luxury vodka and spirits industry.
Jake attends the University of Colorado Boulder where he likes to take advantage of skiing during his downtime.