Sterling had a payroll of mostly inner-city workers, as well as healthy business growth. Set to close on September 11, Woods’s $15 million equity investment was postponed for two weeks, but the Sterling stake is already paying off. One reason: The company’s biggest client is the U.S. military. With extra-long shelf life, the company’s fig bars and shortbread cookies are a staple snack of the armed forces and were even included in relief packages air-dropped into Afghanistan. “There are a lot of smiles on the faces around here,” says Woods, who was an investment banker at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown before co-founding New York-based ICV last March. “Sterling Foods has been a great investment.” Orders from the military have risen substantially, he says, and ebitda is up an astonishing 40 percent since ICV made the acquisition. Meanwhile, Sterling has been building its workforce, which now numbers 250. “In a tight labor market, they have been giving jobs to low-income communities,” notes Woods. “That has us smiling as much as anything else.”
