GP Letter

Dear Partners, Colleagues, and Friends:

For the past nineteen years, AIP has been highly focused on acquiring industrial businesses headquartered in the United States and implementing fundamental operating, financial and technological improvements prior to realizing our investments.

The investment activities of American Industrial Partners are disciplined and highly focused. AIP portfolio companies are generally the world leaders in their market niches but frequently have unexploited opportunities for operating, financial or technological improvements such as global marketing and sourcing potential.

We attribute our investment results to our collaborative application of operating expertise, engineering and technical skills, and innovative financial structuring techniques. The partners and advisory board members of AIP bring distinct capabilities to the investment process and have worked collaboratively together for many years. Acting as a team, the operating, technical and financial talents of AIP are particularly well positioned to identify attractive investment opportunities, design and implement value-enhancing operating strategies for portfolio companies, and avoid many of the inherent risks of private equity investing. Our ability to enhance portfolio company profitability through the implementation of operating improvements has accounted for a significant majority of the gains realized in investments made by our organization.

We approach the future with energy and optimism and a conviction to the organization and investment process that has made our firm successful. We are guided by principles which we believe are fundamental to achieving the professional and personal objectives that we have established for the enterprise and ourselves:

• Commit our full energy and effort to the success of AIP
• Treat investor capital with greater dedication and care than our own
• Provide the greatest possible transparency to our investors
• Partner with the most capable people and provide rapid opportunities for advancement
• Foster an environment that rewards teamwork, imagination and creativity
• Conduct all our business with complete candor and integrity
• Exit companies in better positions than when we acquired them
• Achieve outcomes worthy of our significant efforts, commitment, and use of investor capital

We truly enjoy what we do and we thank you for the role you have played in our Firm’s success and pledge our focused efforts on delivering distinguished results in the decades to come.

Sincerely,