Freeman Spogli & Co.

Freeman Spogli & Co.
Private Ownership
Industry Private Equity
Founded 1983
Founder Richard Riordan, Bradford Freeman and Ronald P. Spogli
Headquarters Los Angeles, California, United States
Products Private equity funds, Leveraged buyouts
Website www.freemanspogli.com

Freeman Spogli & Co. is a leading private equity firm dedicated to investing with management in middle market companies in the consumer and distribution sectors through leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations. The firm invests primarily in the United States.

History

Freeman Spogli, originally known as Riordan, Freeman & Spogli, was founded in 1983 by Richard Riordan, Bradford M. Freeman, and Ronald P. Spogli.

Co-founder Richard Riordan, who would later go on to serve as Mayor of Los Angeles, had been an attorney and had made substantial personal investments in technology companies. After joining the firm, Riordan focused primarily on venture capital investments in computer, medical, and semiconductor companies. Prior to co-founding Freeman Spogli, Bradford Freeman and Ronald P. Spogli had been Managing Directors in the Corporate Finance Department at Dean Witter Reynolds.[1]

The firm made its name in the 1980s through a series of leveraged buyout transactions. Throughout the 1980s, Riordan, Freeman & Spogli also executed leveraged buyouts of several supermarket retailers including Bayless Southwest (Phoenix), Boys Markets (Los Angeles), P&C Foods (Syracuse, NY), Piggly Wiggly (various Southern states), and Tops Markets (New York and Pennsylvania).

Riordan separated from the other two partners in 1988 when they decided to specialize in larger leveraged buyouts of more established companies. Riordan relinquished his general partner position in the firm to form a venture capital firm called Riordan, Lewis & Haden with J. Christopher Lewis and former Los Angeles Rams quarterback Pat Haden. Following Riordan's departure, the firm was renamed Freeman Spogli & Co.

In 2002, former Harvard Business School friend George W. Bush appointed Spogli to a three-year term with the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board.[2][3] Spogli left his position at Freeman Spogli & Co. and in July 2005, was to be sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to Italy on August 10, 2005[4] and later as Ambassador to San Marino in September 2006. He returned to Freeman Spogli in June 2009.

In 2014, Freeman Spogli & Co. received a deficiency letter from the S.E.C. The investigation about misappropriation of investors' fees is on-going. According to the S.E.C. officials, Freeman Spogli appeared to be violating fee-sharing arrangements with its investors in two funds, despite promises to the contrary. And Freeman Spogli, the S.E.C.'s letter said, appeared to be reaping fees from investment-banking-type transactions without fulfilling the regulatory requirement of being registered as a broker-dealer.

Investments

Among the firm's historical investments are the following:

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Managing Principal". penningtonpc.com. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
  2. ↑ "Nominations and Appointments". whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
  3. ↑ "J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT FOREIGN SCHOLARSHIP BOARD 2004•2005". exchanges.state.gov. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
  4. ↑ "BIOGRAPHY". state.gov. Archived from the original on 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
  5. ↑ John Hielscher Firm buys First Watch restaurant chain December 23, 2011 Tampa Herald Tribune

External links