Applied Experience. Applied Intelligence.

When I set out on a journey to a new place—whether metaphorical, as in a new business venture, or an actual trip—I look forward to the richness of the experience, what I can learn from it, and how it might enhance my life and the lives of those who join me. You might say Applied is on such a journey—bringing like-minded partners with us to a place of opportunity, profits, and world-changing accomplishment.

We’ll remain private. Our conscious choice to remain private while harnessing the power of scale and extended economic partnerships is essential to how we do business—choosing long-term value over short-term gains, agility over bureaucracy, and autonomy over corporate-think. Our senior partners have equity in the entire firm and full accountability for the economic interests of our partners and stakeholders.

We’re partners, not a conglomerate. We’re bound to our business partners through a common attitude and approach along with complementary skills and experiences. We offer up our demonstrated ability to lead the industry in risk analysis and underwriting, powered by an entrepreneurial mind-set and the strength of large-scale global resources. In return, our partners bring ideas offering value and opportunity. Creating the kind of partnerships that generate sustained profits able to weather the next economic storm means building a high level of trust. We prove that trust to our partners by giving them our help when they need it and leaving them alone to thrive when they don’t.

We focus on the long game, not quarter-to-quarter thinking. When the economic environment isn’t right, we’re happy to write zero revenue. We will not move from our position that zero profit is greater than a loss. Assets and capital that yield income well above our fixed costs give us the freedom to allocate capital to ideas offering value greater than price.

We live our values. Trust, autonomy, and rational investing translate into our corporate culture and practices too. We don’t need to spend a lot of time explaining to our employees what our culture should be—they see and feel it all around them. They are empowered with access to the training, information, and decision-makers they need to efficiently produce differentiated results. Professional growth, entrepreneurial spirit, and teamwork replace typical corporate practices like do-nothing committees, group-think politics, and blame games. People flourish in this environment—right along with our business performance.

This next stage of Applied’s journey promises to be both energizing and life-enhancing for all of us. We’re eager to explore where our collective imagination, bold thinking, and hard work can take us and our partners. We hope you’ll come along.