In 1998, after 20 years growing our family business, we sold Hav-A-Tampa Cigars to a large, strategic buyer. I had grown up playing on the factory floors, so the sale capped a formative era for me. With the sudden financial windfall came questions about how to invest our proceeds wisely and make them last. Having heard the stories about “shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations,” we didn’t want to become part of that statistic and sought out advice.

After interviewing many wealth managers, we learned some important things. These giant firms were not aligned with our family, did not have our entrepreneurial spirit, did not share our view of risk, and did not understand our desire to control our outcomes. We wanted true partners, taking risks together and reaping rewards together.

We realized that our long-term success would not be achieved with short-term thinking.

We decided we deserved a best-of-breed approach to investing our capital. And this is how we entered a new business: asset management. A few years later, some of our friends realized it was a good model and wanted to invest alongside of us.

In 2001, Bayshore Capital was founded to do just that.

– Tready Smith, Founder & CEO