TPG is a $229B private equity firm that owns many major brands including Airbnb, Spotify, McAfee, Chobani, DirecTV, Cushman & Wakefield, Exactech, and many more. Exactech manufactures and sells medical devices from its headquarter facility in the small college town of Gainesville, Florida, which is also home to the University of Florida Gators.

For years, Exactech has had close ties to the University of Florida including, for example, its collaboration with orthopaedic surgeons in the College of Medicine its sponsorship of UF’s on-campus indoor sports venue, the Exactech Arena, and its initiation of a summer internship program exclusively for UF athletes.

We have learned of numerous potentially serious incidences involving TPG/Exactech’s management that may be evidence of discrimination based on race, sex or sexual orientation, though the company’s governance proscribes such behavior. Shockingly, it appears after senior management was on notice of these acts, TPG/Exactech may have encouraged this behavior by not only failing to terminate many of these managers, but also by later promoting some of the same individuals who may have played a part in the acts.

If this is true, it would seem the company is sending a very strong message that, despite its claims that it supports diversity, equity and inclusion, its practices in fact may support discrimination.

We therefore believe the details surrounding these and other incidences must be thoroughly investigated as possible violations of the company’s own governance guidelines, and importantly, as potential violations of federal law.

A company’s individual and organizational stakeholders have a vested interest, or stake, in the managerial decision-making and activities of a business. In the case of TPG/Exactech, those stakeholders include employees, investors, surgeon consultants, customers, and others.

For example, with little or no forewarning, an employee or a university endowment with significant holdings in a public corporation may experience financial and reputational damage as a result of their association with a company that experiences bad PR due to company management’s poor decisions. This may occur in the absence of a formal boycott once stakeholders conclude management’s actions were so egregious or dehumanizing stakeholders feel uncomfortable associating with or supporting the company due to a conflict in values.

TPG/Exactech’s stakeholders deserve to know whether the company’s management is making responsible decisions and behaving legally and ethically in the best interest of the company. As a part of that assessment, they deserve to know exactly what happened here. If our concerns are true and management knew of this behavior and encouraged it, we believe such irresponsible and reckless actions may expose the company to unnecessary legal and investment risk, which may have a material adverse effect on the company and its stakeholders.

Because the identity and quantity of potential stakeholders is immeasurable, it’s important to inform the public.

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