Greenhill makes forensics tech investment

Greenhill Capital Partners, the private equity affiliate of the publicly traded New York-based investment bank Greenhill & Co., has committed $30 million (€23 million) to Stroz Friedberg, a technical services firm that focuses on digital forensics, electronic discovery, cyber-crime response and investigations, Stroz Friedberg said in a statement.

Part of the money will be allocated for the formation of an “employee equity incentive plan” designed to reward Stroz Friedberg’s employees, the statement said. Those employees come from law enforcement, the private sector and academia, Edward Stroz and Eric Friedberg, the company’s co-presidents, said in the statement. With the commitment from Greenhill, the firm also plans to expand its service line and its geographic reach.

Beryl Howell and Scott Larson, executive managing directors at Stroz Friedberg, will join Stroz and Friedberg as executive managers at the company and will run the company’s daily operations. Howell was formerly the general counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Larson was formerly a supervisory special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There, he oversaw the cyber-crime and infrastructure protection divisions.

Robert Greenhill founded Greenhill & Co. in 1996. It went public in May of 2004 and currently trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GHL. Greenhill Capital Partners was established in 2000 and focuses on the financial services, energy and telecommunications industries. It manages two funds that together are worth approximately $1.3 billion. Greenhill  joined Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based LLR Partners in a $56.2 million recapitalisation of First Equity Card Corporation, a company that issues credit cards to small businesses with less than 10 employees, in October.