I am starting to do work on this one. The leverage is very high, so I don't see it becoming a large position. However, if you can pull of a PE model, you can have very attractive returns.
Apparently PE runs in the Howley's blood. Mike Howley is the managing partner of a PE fund (Bratenahl Partners) where Nick is on the investment committee:
"Bratenahl Capital Partners (BCP) is located in the historic warehouse district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. BCP operates with a substantial amount of our own committed capital, as well as access to significant additional capital through our other investment partners.
We are able to move quickly to assess and decide on opportunities. To date, BCP has completed more than 30 fund investments and 24 co-investments. Over an 8-year span, BCP has achieved greater than a 50% IRR on 16 exited investments, and a cash-on-cash return of about 3.4 times our invested dollars.
Bratenahl Capital Partners was founded in 2003. Michael Howley, the current Managing Partner, was an original founder."
http://www.bratenahlcapital.com/about/