Over the last thirty years, we have grown into one of the most successful independent financial advisory firms in the world by staying true to our founding vision and focus.
By 1985, Financo had completed over 140 transactions and had become the preeminent advisor to retail, apparel and other merchandising companies.
In 1985, Financo was acquired by Lehman Brothers, then a subsidiary of The American Express Company. Mr. Harrison became Chairman of the new Lehman Middle Market Group and assumed additional senior positions at Lehman that included Managing Director, Chairman of the Merchandising Group, and member of the Investment Bank Operating Committee.
In 1989, Mr. Harrison resolved that upholding his vision of an entrepreneurial culture required full independence. To accomplish this goal, he re-acquired the Financo name and re-established the firm in New York as an independent boutique investment banking firm. Since the re-acquisition, we have maintained our focus while expanding our range of services beyond traditional mergers and acquisitions to include private placements, restructuring, direct investments, consulting and other services related to the merchandising industry.
Financo's principals understood that the firm could best serve its clients by providing new partners who not only had different areas of expertise, but who also shared our passion for merchandising. In 1994, Mr. Harrison created Financo Global Consulting (FGC). FGC now advises clients on strategic repositioning, merchandising coordination, licensing negotiations and other strategic and operational projects. FGC has sixteen former senior corporate executives representing a cross-section of merchandising sub-sectors.
Additionally, Financo recognized that clients could benefit from direct investments backed by merchandising expertise. In 1998, Financo joined with Antoine Treuille, former partner of Desai Capital, to create Mercantile Capital Partners (MCP) in order to supply private funding for growing and restructuring companies. After the official launch of the MCP Fund in 2000, Financo hired Mary Ann Domuracki, former CEO of Danskin and EVP/CFO of Kasper/Anne Klein and a partner of Conway, Del Genio, Gries & Co. as well as Ernst & Young, to create the Restructuring and Special Situations Group to handle distressed situations such as financial restructurings. In 2003, John Ponterotto, former Executive Director of the Private Finance Group at CIBC World Markets, joined Financo to create our Private Placement Group (Financo Securities, LLC, an FINRA licenced broker-dealer) in order to enable Financo to raise capital for companies at all points in their development cycles. Together, the Directors of MCP, the Restructuring Group and the Private Placement Group bring decades of merchandising industry experience in both investment banking and operations to Financo.
In late 2004, Bill Susman joined us as Financo's new President and COO to drive the expansion of our full suite of services. Previously, Mr. Susman led Merrill Lynch's Retail and Consumer Products Investment Banking efforts.
