Brent Beshore

“All businesses are loosely functioning disasters, some of which happen to make money.”

– Brent’s 2022 Annual Letter

Brent Beshore is the founder and CEO of Permanent Equity, the Columbia, MO firm he started in 2007 on a simple thesis: buy good companies and keep them. In 2017 he architected the long-term fund structure that lets the firm hold ownership stakes for decades.

His path to this work was less than direct. He started his first business at seven, manufacturing bows and arrows in his Joplin, MO neighborhood (the unit economics weren't great). He went on to study politics with an emphasis on poverty studies at Washington & Lee, spent some time at the University of Missouri's law school, and then returned to building businesses. Along the way he founded marketing and events ventures, accidentally bought a business, and founded Permanent Equity.

As CEO, Brent's time goes three places: the investors who back the funds, the operators who run the companies, and the next opportunity. 

He sits on the boards of Air-Cert, Mediacross, Pacific Air Industries, and 10th St. Talent. He wrote The Messy Marketplace: Selling Your Business in a World of Imperfect Buyers (2018; second edition 2024) to set business owners’ expectations about what it takes to  sell a company successfully. He founded Main Street Summit and helped create Capital Camp, gatherings that bring owners, operators, and investors together from around the world for the kinds of conversations that build real relationships.

Brent and Dr. Erica Beshore are raising three daughters and a son. He's active in his church, serves on the board of Love Columbia, and plays competitive tennis and bad golf.