Golden Gate Capital (GGC) has made a substantial minority equity investment in Sard Verbinnen & Co (SVC), a strategic, financial, and crisis communications firm.
The partnership and capital infusion are expected to help accelerate SVC’s growth plans and capitalise on its leading market position. SVC’s 24 partners, led by co-founders Paul Verbinnen and George Sard, will continue to manage the Company; GGC will not be involved in the day-to-day management of the firm or its client matters. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
“We have known SVC for more than a decade and we have always been very impressed by the firm’s extremely high-quality advice and unparalleled client service,” says Rob Little, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of GGC. “SVC’s world-class team has created a unique enterprise with a differentiated approach to managing complex and mission-critical communications matters for leading global enterprises.”
“SVC is incredibly well positioned to continue their outstanding track record of growth by providing a broader array of solutions to customers and expanding the firm’s footprint geographically, all while retaining the strategic focus, collaborative culture, and client-first approach that has been a hallmark of SVC’s success for nearly 25 years,” adds David Dominik, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of GGC. “We have the utmost confidence in the SVC team and we look forward to supporting their ambitious plans in the years ahead.”
George Sard, Chairman and CEO of Sard Verbinnen, and Paul Verbinnen, President of the firm, says: “As the management team here at SVC began to explore the idea of partnering with an outside investor to accelerate our growth, it became very clear that the right choice was GGC, a firm we have known intimately for more than 10 years. GGC’s unique perpetual fund structure makes them the perfect long-term partner for us and enables them to hold their investment and support our growth plans for many years without any artificial time pressure to exit. We find this flexibility incredibly attractive as we look to continue growing and evolving our business. Golden Gate also has an outstanding track record of supporting management teams and bringing to bear deep experience to enable their portfolio companies to grow and create value for all shareholders.”
Sard Verbinnen & Co is a leading strategic communications firm, which works on some of the highest profile and most challenging communications engagements in the world. Among its recent assignments, SVC advised Alibaba on the biggest IPO in history, United Airlines in its defence against a threatened proxy contest, Herbalife in its defence against an activist shareholder short-selling campaign, eBay with its split into two public companies, Starwood with its contested pending sale to Marriott, Royal Philips with the separation of its lighting unit, Takata with its product recall, and PIMCO with management changes. SVC is consistently ranked among the top M&A communications advisory firms and was named “PR firm of the Year” in 2014 and 2015 by M&A Advisor. The firm has full-service offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London.
Golden Gate Capital is a San Francisco-based private equity investment firm with over USD15 billion of capital under management. The firm’s perpetual fund structure and highly flexible investment mandate enable it to invest in multiple asset classes across a wide range of industries to build meaningful businesses in partnership with management over an indefinite time horizon. Golden Gate has a long and successful history of investing across transaction types, including going-privates, corporate divestitures, and recapitalizations, as well as debt and public equity investments. Notable investments sponsored by Golden Gate Capital include Infor, Nassau Reinsurance Group, Green Street Advisors, Red Lobster, and Humanetics Innovative Solutions. For more information, visit www.goldengatecap.com.
