--- title: "Brighton Partners and the founders’ royalties" language: en canonical: https://dossiertwist.com/dossiers/exactech/brighton-partners-and-royalties/ as_of: 2026-10-16 keywords: ["Exactech","TPG","Osteon Holdings","TPG VII Osteon Holdings","Advita Ortho","Exactech Settlement Trust","polyethylene recall","Connexion GXL","Optetrak","Truliant","Equinoxe","vacuum bag packaging","EVOH","MDL No. 3044","Hospital for Special Surgery","Chapter 11","False Claims Act","Strategic Value Partners","William Petty","Jeffrey Binder"] --- # Brighton Partners and the founders’ royalties **Question.** What did Exactech pay its founders and directors outside their salaries, and how did it acquire Brighton Partners? **Answer.** Exactech paid William Petty and Gary Miller design royalties of 1% of U.S. net sales, capped at $300,000 a year, and paid director Albert Burstein $180,000 in 2009 for consulting. It bought raw materials, equipment and licences from Brighton Partners, 24% owned by Burstein and partly by the Pettys and Miller, and in May 2010 bought Brighton outright for $5.5 million from insider shareholders, with Burstein and Petty as the sellers' representatives. ## Royalties and consulting fees - Analysis: In 1996 Exactech paid royalties to the Hospital for Special Surgery for its licence of the Optetrak knee system, to Accumed, Inc. for a bipolar hip prosthesis, and to members of its design team, including William Petty and Gary Miller, under their employment and consulting agreements. Later product-design consulting agreements paid the two founders 1% of U.S. net sales of the products concerned (less outside the United States), capped at $300,000 a year; in 2009 they received $300,000 together. Director Albert Burstein was paid $180,000 in 2009 under a verbal consulting agreement. [src-025] [src-037] ## Brighton Partners - Analysis: Brighton Partners, Inc. had long supplied Exactech with raw materials, equipment and licences used in production: purchases were $1,559,000 in 2007, $2,155,000 in 2008 and $1,498,000 in 2009. The 2010 proxy deemed Burstein the beneficial owner of 24% of Brighton, William and Betty Petty jointly of 4.6% and Miller of 2.8%. By a stock purchase agreement of May 24, 2010 Exactech bought all of Brighton's shares from its shareholders, among them Burstein, Miller, Betty, David and William Petty, Joel Phillips and Timothy Seese, with Burstein and William Petty acting as the sellers' representatives; a summary gives the price as $5,500,000. The sellers were to hand over Brighton's manufacturing documentation, including tool design methods, production recipes, a list of major suppliers and the quality manual. [src-037] [src-068] ## Sources - [src-025] Exactech, Inc. registration statement (Form S-1/A) for its 1996 initial public offering, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 1996 - [src-037] Exactech, Inc. 2010 proxy statement (DEF 14A), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 2010 - [src-068] Company statement source · src-068