ICO believes in aligning priorities when it comes to the investment and operation of its portfolio. Both Principals have deep and broad experience as investors and as operating executives. They work for themselves rather than outside shareholders.

By deploying their own capital in the businesses, they avoid the agency dilemma of most investment businesses wherein the principals invest OPM—other people’s money—where risk/reward incentives are fundamentally misaligned, and the desire for fees often outweighs business prudence.

ICO uses it’s strong leadership background in both investment and operational excellence to create long-term value for its assets. ICO uses the mindset of an owner and investor when making investment decisions and an operating manager when making capital and resource allocation decisions in operating and leading businesses. This dual experience and perspective as both investors and operating leaders has resulted in consistent outperformance against competitors.

ICO uses its broad network, deep industry knowledge, operational expertise, and strategic portfolio intelligence to ensure value is created from each business activity.

ICO aspires to (1) be recognized by trade partners as the premier investment and real estate firm in Utah and (2) build a great firm by attracting, developing, exciting, and retaining superior talent who emulate the ICO values.

Value creation is the core of ICO’s business purpose. ICO invests in assets and people and applies a proprietary leadership and management system to improve them. Part of that management system is a confidential set of values that guides every team member. The result of this relentless focus on creating value is an ICO portfolio that generates superior returns on invested capital. The firm’s success, in turn, helps employees achieve their professional and personal goals. Fundamentally, ICO uses this management discipline to transform vision into value. Shortcuts to value maximization do not exist. Consistently applying management disciplines has led to sustained performance, enabling our firm to become a respected leader in its region.

In the early 1990s, two guys–Clark Ivory and Jim Seaberg–met at Harvard Business School. They and their young families became friends but after graduation each began separate career paths. Clark returned to Utah to extend and eventually own and run the Ivory Homes platform created by his father. Jim became a partner at an international consulting firm. The two stayed in touch and co-invested in real estate over the years. When Ivory Homes had assembled a critical mass of commercial real estate, Jim came to Utah to run the commercial business platform. Over the decades, the businesses and buildings they invested in have changed but the philosophy remains the same: invest in land, properties, businesses, and public market opportunities at the right price, engage the best team, and add significant value to each investment through operational and leadership expertise.