Murry Gunty

Murry N. Gunty is the founder and head of Blackstreet Capital, a private equity firm based in Bethesda, Maryland, United States.^[1] Blackstreet focuses on control buyouts of underperforming corporate orphans with $25–150 million in revenues. The firm has more than $170 million of committed capital. Blackstreet's industries of interest include niche manufacturing, value added distribution, specialty retail, education and training, healthcare services and devices, and restaurants.

Early career and Blackstreet founding

Prior to launching Blackstreet, Gunty was a general partner at the private equity firm Jacobson Partners, a small private equity firm that invests in companies with up to $150 million in revenue. He was also a partner in the real estate principal investment area of Lazard Freres, where he co-managed $3 billion of capital in real-estate related private equity funds.

Blackstreet Capital was founded in 2003 as Milestone partners in a joint venture with DC-based Milestone Merchant Partners. The merchant bank had relationships with Robert Pincus,^[2] the vice chairman of Eagle Bank, and Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr.^[3], the Washington lawyer and lobbyist. Both Pincus and Boggs became members of Gunty's board of advisers, providing, according to the Washington Post, "a sort of seal of approval for wealthy investors."^[1]

Many of Blackstreet's investors are Washington-based business owners such as Ray Rice ^[4], owner of a Virginia executive recruiting company called Capital Search Group; and Ken Malm, CEO of the Craftmark Group, an area homebuilder.

Business transactions

During Gunty's tenure, Blackstreet has purchased 25 companies representing nearly $1.5 billion in revenue. Blackstreet has realized five investments with an average return of 5.5 times invested capital, according to the Washington Post, and has saved over 5,000 jobs.

Gunty's deals at Blackstreet have included the sale of Florida Tile to Panariagroup of Italy, earning a reported 14 times invested capital for Blackstreet investors.

In 2008, Blackstreet sold Houston Harvest, Inc. and Gift Products, Inc. ("HHI/GPI") to Signature Brands, LLC. HHI/GPI, based in Franklin Park, Illinois, a supplier of seasonal food gifts and popcorn tins to mass retailers including Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart. The company has licensing agreements with food and entertainment companies, which it uses to brand popcorn tins and gift baskets.

Also in 2008, Blackstreet affiliate FTCA, Inc. purchased Fleetwood Folding Trailers, Inc. (FFT) from Fleetwood Enterprises. Founded in 1967, Fleetwood manufactures folding camping trailers under the brands Highlander, Americana, Destiny and Evolution.

In 2007, Gunty's firm announced the sale of PJCOMN Acquisition Corporation to Essential Pizza, Inc. PJCOMN owns and operates 82 Papa John's Pizza restaurants in Colorado and Minnesota. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but at the time, Papa John's was the world's third largest pizza company with 3,090 restaurants (614 company-owned and 2,476 franchised) operating in 50 states and 27 countries.^[5]

Gunty in 2007 also presided over Blackstreet's purchase of Swift Spinning, Inc. from Marubeni Corporation of Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1906, Swift is a producer of cotton yarns for knitting, weaving and hosiery customers. The company's products carry the labels of Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, J.C. Penney, Sears, Mervyns, Tommy Hilfiger, Gold Toe, Land's End, L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer, among others.^[6][7] In 2006, Blackstreet's predecessor, Milestone Capital, purchased American Combustion Industries, Inc. (ACI) from Washington Gas Light Holdings Company. Industry veterans Tim and John Kirlin invested alongside Blackstreet in the transaction and were widely credited for turning the company around. The company's revival was chronicled by the Maryland Gazette.^[8]

Recent transactions

In 2010, Blackstreet Capital purchased S.C.-based Park Seed Company for $13 million].^[9] The company sells plant seeds and other gardening supplies online and through a catalog business and is located in Greenwood, home of the annual South Carolina Flower Festival. Park Seed worked with NASA to send seeds into space as part of a classroom education program.^[10]

In January 2012, Blackstreet veered from its usual distressed-asset deals with the purchase of marketing communications franchisor AlphaGraphics, Inc., formerly owned by the UK-based G A Pindar & Son Ltd.^[11][12]

The May 2012 purchase of a South Carolina manufacturing plant was the second time the Maryland private equity firm rescued a company in the state from the brink of closure. The Greenwood facility, which manufactures Neptune flow meters used in the petroleum and LPG industries, was purchased from Itron by Blackstreet-backed Red Seal Measurement in a deal that saved more than 50 local jobs.^[13]

Personal life

Murry N. Gunty was born in 1967 in New York, and grew up in Portland, Maine. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1989 with an A.B. in Economics. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 1993. He is active with the Jewish Federation, and is a founding member of the Business Roundtable.

In 2006, Gunty, or one of his representatives, requested that a blogger redact his name from an essay about ethics that claimed that while a student Gunty had attempted to rig the elections of the school's Finance Club. Gunty claimed that the blogger had violated his right to privacy.^[14][15]

He lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife Lisa,^[16] and three children.

References

External links

• Blackstreet Capital official site

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