Private Capital: Intelligence for the Family Office Investor · Sep 24, 2026 · 47m · 33m saved
With Ward McNally, Founder, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of McNally Capital
McNally Capital asks the founders of the companies it buys to keep at least 20% of the business, and on average its management teams own more than 30%.
Most buyout firms want control and a sale inside five years. Ward McNally said his firm models a five-year exit only to stay competitive in an auction, then holds for as long as the business keeps compounding, and it has kept companies for 7, 9 and 10 years.
"There's a reason why the mission in our private equity firm today is preserving legacies and capitalizing on opportunities."
Ward McNally, founder, co-CEO and managing partner of McNally Capital, on Private Capital. His family controlled the mapmaker Rand McNally for five generations and sold it in pieces while he was in college, and two of the businesses sold later went bankrupt. He started his firm in 2008 to buy family- and founder-owned companies with family offices as co-investors.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 47 minutes of audio, 14 minutes of reading.
Here are the 16 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
Founders keep at least 20% of each company, and management teams own more than 30% on average
Two bankruptcies after the Rand McNally sales set the firm's first rule: never run a founder's business into the ground
Private equity may be 20% of a family's assets but 80% of the time it spends investing
A $4M Patriot missile to stop a $100,000 drone is a trade the US cannot sustain, he said
Counter-drone technology is where he sees the most urgent defense work
He will not pay venture prices for defense technology, and wants at least $5M of annual operating profit
ITS Logistics went from 70% truck-and-trailer assets to about 30% over seven years of ownership
A truck-stop owner among the co-investors benchmarked and then cut the company's fuel costs
The firm has no set holding period and reviews each company's plan every three years
1. Maps Before Finance
McNally grew up in Chicago and studied political science and geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a boy he spent Saturdays and holidays in Rand McNally's geospatial lab drawing maps while his father and grandfather worked.
He expected to join the family business, and the sale ended that plan
The family began selling the company shortly after he graduated. He recalled his grandfather's advice:
"I'm sorry there's not an opportunity for you here in the company because we're in the process of selling it, but you should go find another job and find something you really like." — Ward McNally
He took a UNC program for liberal arts graduates going into business, then joined Continental Bank in Chicago, which is now part of Bank of America. He called finance, which he had never studied, a blessing in disguise.
