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News Contact: Jeff Bogart Robert M. Blumenfeld 212-486-0030 ACG New York jeff@bogart.cc (212) 489-8700
For Immediate Release
ACG NEW YORK DEAL TANK TO PREMIER IN WESTCHESTER WITH FOUR CONTESTANTS SEEKING PRIVATE CAPITAL
--A Capital Time for Small Business to Finance or Cash Out--
NEW YORK, Oct. 29, 2013--Splish Splash --That's the sound of another business executive jumping into ACG New York's West-Hud DealTank at the Castle Hotel & Spa (formerly Castle-on-the-Hudson) in Tarrytown, N.Y., on Friday morning, Nov. 15 in search of private-equity investors or a buyer of his or her small business.
ACG New York, the leading middle-market association for dealmakers, is premiering in Westchester its own middle-market version of the popular pitch programs on TV and those conducted in the venture capital community.
Two of the four firms plunging into the tank to pitch for dollars are based in Westchester County; a third is located in New Jersey; and the fourth comes from New Hampshire. One of the four judges is from Westchester, as is the event's Tankmaster. There will be prizes for the contestants and, who knows, an investment.
"Few businesses can grow and prosper without outside capital, and private capital has proven itself to be an effective way to fund expansion," says Jonathan Flaks, the head of ACG New York's Westchester programming who heads a Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.-based executive coaching business that counts many Westchester executives as clients. "Private equity is also an excellent exit strategy for business owners seeking to capitalize on the businesses they have developed and retire or move on to start new ventures. America's economy depends on privately owned businesses, and privately owned businesses run on private capital."
"DealTank is timely," says Richard Baum, chairman of the DealTank event and managing partner of Consumer Growth Partners, a White Plains, N.Y.-based private equity and business advisory firm. Mr. Baum, a former top-ranked security analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs and Sanford C. Bernstein, will serve as Tankmaster, or moderator, of the event.
As Mr. Baum observes, now may indeed be a capital time to seek financing or to "cash out": The Wall Street Journal recently published an article headlined: "Small Business: Finally, a Good Time to Sell the Business". The article reports the head of SBA (Small Business Administration) lending at a major bank as noting that small business balance sheets are looking better and that cash flows have turned positive. (WSJ, (10/24/13)
"Business owners who attend will gain new insight into how companies present themselves," Baum says. "Private capital investors, lenders, service providers and others who attend can identify new investment opportunities, clients and customers as well as make new contacts in the New York metropolitan financial community. He adds: "We expect ACG New York West-Hud DealTank to be a splash of an event!" The breakfast program features four middle-market private companies seeking to raise institutional capital for their businesses. They will make short presentations of their companies' investment merits to a distinguished panel of four private equity investors. The panel and audience will provide feedback, ask questions, and vote on the “best” company in several different categories. Once votes are tallied, winners and prizes will be announced. The contestants (and their sectors) include: · Raw Indulgence (Consumer)-- a Hawthorne, N.Y.-based consumer products company run by Alice and Dave Benedetto that makes and distributes healthy snack foods regionally; · Vitex Extrusion (Industrial) -- a Franklin, N.H., aluminum extrusion manufacturer for markets including alternative energy, automotive, consumer goods, and electronics, that has announced extensive facility improvements and optimizations for 2013; · Secure Path Networks (Telecom) --a Pelham, N.Y.-based telecommunication consulting firm that helps businesses optimize their expenditures on their telecom networks; · VPIsystems (Telecom) a provider of end-to-end, predictive network analytics with offices in Somerset, N.J., and Berlin, Germany.
The judges will include: · Gary Kane, Founder and Managing Partner, Chimera Strategies, LLC, an East Hills, N.Y., investment banking firm focused on the lower middle market; · Michael Pfeffer, Managing Director, Post Capital Partners, a New York-based private-investment firm that invests in small and lower middle-market businesses; · Tom Shattan, Co-Chairman, Shattan Mendel Enterprises, a New York City-based merchant-banking firm that advises and invests in middle-market companies and, where appropriate, obtains institutional private-equity capital for its clients and investments;. · Musa Yenni, Founder & President, Yenni Capital, Inc. , a New York-based private-equity firm. He is also Managing Partner of the newly launched Yenni Income Opportunities Fund I, which makes control equity investments in small, profitable and growth-oriented companies primarily in the U.S.
The ACG New York breakfast on Nov. 15 will be held at the Castle Hotel & Spa in Tarrytown from 7:30 am to 9:30 a.m. To register, CLICK HERE . The Twitter hash mark for this event is #DealTank.
ACG® New York, Inc. (www.acgnyc.org), the founding chapter of The Association for Corporate Growth, is the leading membership organization in New York that facilitates relationship building and focused education for middle market deal-making professionals.
Each year over 8,000 professionals participate in ACG New York' s 70+ networking and educational events in New York City and Westchester and on Long Island, including healthcare, manufacturing & logistics, and retail conferences. ACG Deal-Source® and ACG Capital Connection® events put buyers together with funding sources in scheduled private meetings and bring M&A specialists together for open networking.
The organization’s annual Champions Awards recognize the year’s outstanding middle market firms and deals, while its Education Cup competition honors the best graduate business school team from the New York City area for M&A counseling prowess. These and other programs have spurred ACG New York’s rapid growth in recent years, with membership now exceeding 1,000
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News
Contact: Jeff Bogart Robert M. Blumenfeld 212-486-0030 ACG New York jeff@bogart.cc (212) 489-8700
For Immediate Release
ACG® New York Conference on Breakthrough Brands to Feature Speakers From NBTY, GfK, Kao Brands, TSG Consumer Partners, Church & Dwight
NEW YORK, Oct. 4, 2013--The secrets of building "breakthrough brands" will be explored at ACG New York's 4th annual Consumer Brands Conference on Oct. 17 by panels of corporate and private equity executives and by the chief marketing officer of NBTY, America's largest marketer of vitamins and nutritional supplements whose brands include Nature's Bounty®, Balance Bar®, Solgar®, Holland & Barrett®, and Met-Rx®.
"Breakthrough brands are the lifeblood of the consumer products industry," says conference chaiman Martin Okner, ACG New York president and managing director of SHM Corporate Navigators, a marketing and management consultancy. "They create the story, consumer loyalty, channel interest, and excitement around the revenue streams of a company. This excitement often drives valuations up because potential stakeholders can see a clear runway for growth."
The event's first panel features operators, innovators, and repositioning experts examining how to build and sustain growth among breakthrough brands. The panelists include: (l to r)
Panel No. 2 features corporate development officers, private equity professionals, and investment bankers discussing how the successful efforts of operators can build valuations and the perceived paths to continued growth for a buyer of a breakthrough brand. The panelists include (l to r):
The keynote speaker is Katia Facchetti (left), CMO of NBTY, Inc., a portfolio company of The Carlyle Group. NBTY is a $3 billion global vertically integrated manufacturer, marketer and distributor of a broad line of high-quality, value-priced nutritional supplements. It has several breakthrough brands in its product portfolio across a variety of verticals--namely, Balance Bar, Osteo Bi-Flex, Met-Rx, Pure Protein, and Vitamin World. Ms. Facchetti will share how she and her team continue to sustain growth among these brands and keep them all on the side of rising tides within their respective categories.
The event, being held at JWT (J. Walter Thompson) at 466 Lexington Ave. (between 45th and 46th Streets), runs from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. For bios of the speakers, a detailed schedule, and registration, click here (http://bit.ly/18R9Jxp).
ACG® New York, Inc. (www.acgnyc.org), the founding chapter of The Association for Corporate Growth, is the leading membership organization in New York that facilitates relationship building and focused education for middle market deal-making professionals.
Each year over 8,000 professionals participate in ACG New York' s 70+ networking and educational events in New York City and Westchester and on Long Island, including healthcare, manufacturing & logistics, and retail conferences. ACG Deal-Source® and ACG Capital Connection® events put buyers together with funding sources in scheduled private meetings and bring M&A specialists together for open networking.
The organization’s annual Champions Awards recognize the year’s outstanding middle market firms and deals, while its Education Cup competition honors the best graduate business school team from the New York City area for M&A counseling prowess. These and other programs have spurred ACG New York’s rapid growth in recent years, with membership now exceeding 1,000.
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For Immediate Release
Lee & Low Books Acquires Children’s Book Press Assets --Continues Expansion in Recessionary Times-- --Foresees Increasing Demand for Diversity Texts— --Two Latina Books Win Top Library Awards -- New York, NY, Jan. 27, 2012—Continuing to expand despite a difficult economy, LEE & LOW BOOKS, an independent publisher of high quality books for children and young adults with a focus on diversity, announced today that it has acquired the assets of San Francisco-based Children’s Book Press, the first specialty publisher of multicultural children’s books in the United States. With this addition LEE & LOW BOOKS becomes one of the largest independent multicultural children’s publishers in the country, with over 650-titles in print. Terms of the cash transaction include the acquisition of tangible assets such as books in inventory and intangible assets such as copyrights and trademarks, including the Children’s Book Press name. Lee & Low will assume Children’s Book Press contracts with authors, illustrators, customers and suppliers. The sale price was not disclosed. “This acquisition is a tremendous honor for us-- to keep the prestigious collection of Children’s Book Press alive and to have the opportunity to build on its 36-year history,” said Jason Low, publisher of LEE & LOW BOOKS. Lee & Low Books also announced that two of its titles were recipients Monday, Jan. 23, of top American Library Association-sponsored children’s book publishing awards. Under the Mesquite, by Guadalupe Garcia McCall won the 2012 Pura Belpre Award Author Medal. Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match/Marisol McDonald no combinia, by author Monica Brown and illustrator Sara Palacios won the 2012 Pura Belpre Award Illustrator Honor. Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match is one of the titles acquired from Children’s Book Press.
“Marisol McDonald is the last book published by CBP, so it is a nice if not bittersweet ending for this small press,” Low said. Children’s Book Press (CBP), founded in 1975, and LEE & LOW BOOKS share similar missions of promoting diversity through the publication of books for young readers. The first nonprofit independent publisher to focus solely on multicultural and bilingual literature for children in the United States, CBP works feature characters from African American, Asian/Pacific American, Native American, Latino, and multiracial communities. Its authors, illustrators and books have won major awards, including the Ezra Jack Keats New Writers Award, Pura Belpré Award, Jane Addams Award, Américas Award, Tomás Rivera Award, and others. Among its better-known titles are Family Pictures, See the Rhythm , My Diary from Here to There, Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, Storyteller’s Candle, Let Me Help, Quinito’s Neighborhood, Upside Down Boy, I Know the River Loves Me, Cilantro Girl, It doesn’t Have to Be This Way, and Angel’s Kite. Children’s Book Press will maintain its own identity as a separate imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS. “Creating continuity for the mission of Children’s Book Press is important to us, since its commitment to diversity was so groundbreaking,” noted Low. “Children’s Book Press started the trend of featuring people of color in the pages of books—before this, the reading experience was for the most part exclusively white.” The purchase of CBP is another step in Lee & Low’s growth. Founded in 1991 to provide illustrated children’s books for the diversity market, the Manhattan-based company has steadily expanded its grade and age ranges and its content. In 2000, it launched its now firmly established education arm, Bebop Books, which started with books for grades k-2 and by 2005 reached grades k-5. Last year it entered the young adult (middle school and high school) market through the launch of Tu Books, an imprint for science fiction, fantasy, and mystery novels. “Our Children’s Book Press acquisition and the warm reception that Tu is meeting say without question that the demand is growing for diverse books,” Low said. “It is our prediction that as America becomes more and more culturally diverse, the need for diverse books will grow along with the changing population. At the same time, it will become increasingly apparent that books with multicultural characters deal with common and compelling themes that make them good reads for audiences of all cultures.” LEE & LOW BOOKS is one of the few minority-owned publishing companies in the country. A family-owned business that prides itself on publishing the old-fashioned way, Lee & Low Books has brought to market titles that have won numerous awards and honors, including American Library Association-sponsored Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpré, and Notable Children’s Books Awards; the Parents’ Choice Award; and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award. LEE & LOW BOOKS has also received praise from The New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), the Anti Defamation League (ADL), Reading is Fundamental (RIF), USA Today, CBS This Morning, Kirkus Reviews, and Smithsonian magazine. Among its better-known titles are Amelia’s Road, Bein’ with You This Way, Baseball Saved Us, Giving Thanks; In Daddy’s Arms I Am Tall; Elizabeti’s Doll; The Pot That Juan Built; Sam and the Lucky Money; Crazy Horse’s Vision; Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan; Amazing Faces; Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Short; and Under the Mesquite. # # #
BOGART COMMUNICATIONS 5 Jordan Road Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 10706
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Contact: Jeff Bogart Bogart Communications 212-486-0030; Jeff@Bogart.cc
For: Infonortics Ltd. For Immediate Release
Google Enterprise Search Chief to Keynote 11th Annual Search Engine Meeting
--Boston Selected for Future Conferences --
NEW YORK, March 10, 2006—The general manager of Google Enterprise, Dave Girouard, will give the opening keynote address at this year’s Search Engine Meeting (SEM) in Boston, the conference’s sponsor, Infonortics Ltd., announced today. Now in its 11th year, the conference, SEM is expected to draw over 150 to Boston’s Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel on April 24-25. Although little-known, the international search-engine conference has been dubbed “the search insider’s conference.” Its past sessions have attracted leading search industry researchers, designers and developers as well as academics, investors, and major corporate users. “Our attendees tend to be professionals deeply involved with search, whether at search engine developers or with major user organizations either already committed to enterprise search or attracted by its potential applicability and benefits,” says Harry Collier, Infonortics founder and managing director. “In either case,” adds Collier, who has been following electronic search for over two decades, “they’re interested in trends, and that’s what SEM is all about.”
Why Boston Collier also announced that after testing Bath, England; Boston; San Francisco; and The Hague as a site for SEM in recent years, Infonortics has settled on Boston as the best venue for the conference this year and in the future. “Boston provides easy travel access both to those within North America and in Europe,” explains Collier. “It also appears to be a city to which people like to travel. In addition, there is a strong high-tech hinterland in the rest of Massachusetts and in Connecticut.”
Collier expects that SEM will continue to attract attendance from outside the United States. “SEM has a highly international flavor: Traditionally, around 20-25% of the attendees have come from outside the USA,” he says.
Why Exhibitors
At this year’s conferences, exhibitors are back after a three-year absence, although limited by Collier to just 10, Infonortics further announced. The exhibitors are Acuity Software, Convera, DocSoft, Endeca, Engenium, FAST, MuseGlobal, Nstein Technologies, Speed of Mind, and TEMIS. “We’ve restarted the exhibitions,” says Collier, “because of the number of small companies with interesting new mousetraps and because small company exhibitors are popular with attendees.”
Google’s Girouard joins 25 other speakers and panelists on the 2006 SEM program. As previously announced, they include:
– Alan Feuer, founder and Chief Technologist, Blossom Software, Inc.;
– Claude Vogel, Chief Technical Officer, Convera Corporation;
– Stephen Arnold, president, Arnold Information Technology (AIT);
– Raul Valdes-Perez, co-founder and president of Vivisimo, Inc.A complete list of speakers, their topics and their bios, is available at http://www.infonortics.com/searchengines. Infonortics Ltd. (www. http://www.infonortics.com), founded in 1987 and based in offices in Tetbury, England, some 90 miles west of London, is both an organizer of meetings, conferences and workshops and a publisher of business and technology books, reports and custom studies. Besides SEM, its annual conferences include the International Chemical Information Conference and Exhibition, the International Virtual Communities Conference, and the Intelligence Tools, Data Mining, Visualization Conference (IDV). ■ BOGART COMMUNICATIONS 5 Jordan Road Hastings-on-Hudson New York 10706
Contact: Jeff Bogart Bogart Communications212-486-0030; Jeff@Bogart.cc
For: Arnold Information Technology For Immediate Release
Google, We Hardly Know You! THE GOOGLE LEGACY A New Book by Stephen E. Arnold What kind of company is Google? The world mostly knows this high-flying, publicly traded West Coast company as the upstart that's revolutionized search. Wrong, says the author of a new book. Google is much more. New, radical, and overlooked, Google is this era's transformational computing platform and could be about to unseat Microsoft from its throne. Google is not just about search: search is merely one application you can load on its processor, Internet technology expert Stephen E. Arnold says in The Google Legacy (Infonortics; September 2005; $180.00, PDF version). Although Google has been releasing a series of separate applications programs, the company is starting to assemble the mosaic pieces into a bigger picture. Its future will be about leveraging its innovative hardware/software infrastructure. In so doing, just as Microsoft replaced IBM, Google promises to replace Microsoft as network computing comes of age. Written for business readers, especially senior executives of mid to large-sized, knowledge-based corporations, The Google Legacy places Google under a microscope, dissects Google's technology, evaluates its potential and determines that Google's future lies beyond search. The book's 11 chapter headings include "Google's First Principles," "Google Basics," "Google Technology," "Google Relevance Ranking and Search Engine Optimization," "Gmail and Google Maps," "Google Clustering: News and Enhanced Search," "Google Print and Scholar," "Google: A New Force in Enterprise Search," "Google APIs: Netting Developers," "Google Goes Personal," and "The Google Legacy." Three appendices provide lists of Google patents, publishers that have indicated some type of relationship with Google, and universities working with Google-information that, according to the author, Google has not made easy to locate or update. ". . . At Google, from its inception, Google software and Google hardware have been tightly coupled," Arnold observes. "Google is not a software company nor is it a hardware company. Google is, like IBM, a company that owes its existence to both hardware and software. Unlike IBM, Google has a business model that is advertiser supported. Technically, Google is conceptually closer to IBM (at one time a hardware and software company) than it is to Microsoft (primarily a software company) or Yahoo! (an integrator of multiple softwares)." Among the book's critical insights:
Such insights underpin Arnold's conclusions that, if Google can avoid or overcome certain pitfalls and hurdles, "Google is poised to become the heir to Microsoft." The author sets forth a series of legal, management and marketing obstacles. The book also identifies and explains a series of incremental hardware and software innovations "not fully appreciated by Google's competitors, analysts, or users" that have given Google its competitive edge. "The net of these advantages is that Google does not have a search system. Google has a supercomputer that delivers applications. Some of these applications are free for the user; for example, search. Other applications are for Google's 4,000 employees; for example, the programmers who craft applications for the Googleplex and employees who use the formidable number-crunching capabilities of the Googleplex to figure out what users are doing, how to maximize advertising revenue from billions of online clicks in real time, and improve the search experience." What is Google's legacy? Arnold clearly and eloquently defines it at the end of his first chapter. He introduces the subject by posing this question: "A young programmer in Beijing or Bangkok is now influenced by Google. If that programmer wakes up one day and Google has disappeared, for what system will the programmer develop?" Arnold then proceeds to provide the answer. About the Author A sought-after consultant, popular lecturer and established author on technology, Stephen E. Arnold has six books and over 50 articles appearing in a wide range of media to his credit. Among his books are five on the Internet, including Publishing on the Internet: A New Medium for a New Millennium (1996) and New Trajectories of the Internet (2001). These books identify trends, impacts and new technologies. His last book, The Enterprise Search Report, was a comprehensive overview of 28 search solution providers and best practices. Arnold, who heads Arnold Information Technology, is based in the Louisville, Kentucky, suburb of Harrod's Creek. He will be a keynote speaker and track coordinator for VNU's Online Information international search conference held in London in fall 2005. The Google Legacy (Infonortics, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England; www.infonortics.com; September 2005). Available in online PDF version only; $180.00 per download at http://www.infonortics.com/publications/google/google-legacy.html; 280 pages . ■
8/22/05 |
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