Mitch Daniels joins Indianapolis-based LDI Ltd. as executive partner

As it seeks to enlarge its portfolio of operating companies, Indianapolis-based LDI Ltd. has added former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels as an executive partner.

Daniels joined LDI in the second half of last year, but LDI announced his arrival this week. He’s the first executive partner, but the company could add others over time, Amelia Patel, LDI’s chief of staff, told IBJ. The company is planning to increase its holdings, she said.

“This is our first foray into the executive partner world. And depending on how well it goes with Mitch, we might expand the program,” she said.

LDI, formerly known as Lacy Diversified Industries, is a fourth-generation, family-owned holding company that traces its roots to 1912, when Howard J. Lacy Sr. co-founded the Indianapolis-based U.S. Corrugated Fiber Box Co.

The company later changed its name to Lacy Diversified Industries (and after that, LDI), sold U.S. Corrugated in 1984 and began acquiring other companies. Its current portfolio includes six companies: three of which it owns and three others in which it holds minority ownership. Of those six, one of them is Indiana-based Walkerton manufacturer Polygon Composites Technology.

The company will focus on investments in Indiana-based companies, she said, which is why it brought Daniels on board.

“We are looking to grow our portfolio pretty significantly over the next five years,” Patel said. “Mitch was a strategic play in that. He’s got deep Indiana networks and knows the state well.”

Daniels served as president of Purdue University from 2013 to 2022 and Indiana governor before that, from 2005 to 2013. He was also recently appointed to the board of the Liberty Fund, a private education foundation based in Carmel. Daniels is also a distinguished scholar and senior adviser at the foundation.

“Mitch being on the LDI team as an executive partner is going to help transform how we source support and build businesses specific to Indiana,” Patel said.

Patel said LDI has not set specific investment goals in terms of how many companies it wants to add.

“We kind of ebb and flow as the market takes us,” she said.

LDI currently owns and operates three companies. In addition to Polygon, those are Portland, Oregon-based logistics provider OIA Global; and Jacksonville, Florida-based Acme Barricades, which provides highway safety and traffic control equipment rentals and maintenance.

LDI also holds minority ownership investments in railroad services company Genesis Rail Co. which is based in Bluefield, West Virginia and Roanoke, Virginia; Minneapolis-based medical device maker UltiMed Inc.; and West Columbia, South Carolina-based pipe supplier Sanitary Solutions Inc.