John awas hired by the private equity firm Apollo Global Management to develop and execute an exit strategy that maximized value for Apollo and the other shareholders of Classic Party Rentals.
As CEO, he completed 15 transactions resulting in the sale of 30 company locations in 6 months to strategic competitors and private equity investors by leveraging industry relationships. Prior to the sale Classic was the largest party/event equipment rental company in the United States generating revenue in excess of $200 million.
John was educated on the general, construction and industrial side of the industry during their tenure with Brambles Equipment Services. He started out handling the integration of acquisitions and then served as senior regional management and ultimately became the CEO of this publicly held organization. He was involved in numerous buy-side and sell-side transactions while at Brambles and oversaw the sale process that resulted in the sale of the company to NES Rentals a strategic competitor. Brambles was the 9th largest construction/industrial equipment rental company in the industry at the time generating approximately $200 million in revenue with 40 locations in the United States and Canada.
John served as President of Great Lakes Powerlift, a Midwest based industrial and construction equipment dealership. He directed all acquisition and divestiture activities for this organization. Under his leadership rental revenue grew exponentially.
As CEO for Karl’s Event Services, which later became Arena Americas, John developed and executed an exit strategy for the shareholders of Karl’s and brought in the Arena Group from Europe creating what was viewed at the time as the premier and largest provider of tenting and temporary structure products and services in the United States.
In addition to driving significant organic revenue growth and dramatically improving profitability John shifted the focus of the organization from non-recurring and shrinking revenue sectors to recurring core event opportunities with multi-year contracts. Examples included: New York Fashion Week; NFL Draft; Daytona 500; Miami Open Tennis; Frieze Art Fair; Chicago Marathon; Lollapalooza Music Festival; US Open Golf.
John was first exposed to the rental industry in 1992 with the purchase of a small full-line party/event rental business. John often says that during this experience he had the opportunity to literally work on the ground level of the business and perform every role within the organization. He says that it was a tremendous learning experience and to this day reminds him just how hard the people in our industry work every day to support the success of the organization.
Joe has over 30+ years of professional business experience in public accounting, tax and law.
Joe has been practicing law the past 30 years, during which time he has represented,
advised and acted as counsel for many businesses. He has represented clients in the
equipment rental industry ranging in size from small, closely held businesses to the North
American operations of a large International company. His areas of representation have
included tax and legal structure of acquisitions and divestitures, formation of joint ventures,
employee issues, commercial real estate transactions, estate planning and business
succession planning.
John and Joe headed up a boutique investment banking firm similar to The Haener Group, specializing in the equipment rental industry. They were successful in supporting owners of equipment rental companies from both the general/construction/industrial sector and the party/event sector of the industry in a seller representation as well as financial and operational consulting capacity.
John and Joe started their careers together with the public accounting firm Deloitte & Touche where they were exposed to many industries.
