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The Jordan Company closed on $3.6 billion for its second institutional private equity fund at the beginning of the year, further securing its place in the industry pantheon of $1 billion plus-sized funds. It also closed the acquisition of chemical services company Haas TCM, not exactly a bad start for what is shaping up to be the toughest business cycle facing corporate America since 2002.
For John W. Jordan II, chairman of the company, the closing of The Resolute Fund II LP is proof that the buy-and-build strategy he's employed at the middle-market private equity firm works. Since founding the New York and Chicago-based firm with fellow managing principal David Zalaznick in 1982, after the pair left New York's storied investment firm Carl Marks & Co., the Jordan Co. has executed more than 50 transactions in 38 countries including China, India and Russia, launched a publicly traded fund on the London Stock Exchange, and established offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China.
Besides Jordan and Zalaznick, Jordan Co.'s senior ranks include four other seasoned managing principals: Jonathan Boucher, A. Richard Caputo Jr., Adam Max and Thomas Quinn, who established the firm's operations management group in 1988.
Born in Kansas City, Mo., Jordan is a household name in the middle market deal business. Besides backing family-owned businesses early on, he's executed a spate of successful deals involving companies like Jordan Telecommunications Products, W-H Energy Services, Safety Insurance and TAL International Group, and built a solid firm by promoting investment professionals from within.
Jordan, known in the deal business as "Jay", brings an unassuming, Midwestern demeanor to the heady world of high finance, but that doesn't mean the University of Notre Dame graduate is unsophisticated or out of touch with culture. He sits on the boards of the high profile Chicago cultural institutions Lyric Operaof Chicago and Art Institute of Chicago when he isn't structuring conservatively-leveraged buyouts. And, at 60, he's brought the Jordan Co. through more than one economic storm. So, IDD thought it would be a good time to chat with the veteran dealmaker.
IDD: The Jordan Co. closed its largest fund in January, making it your firm's largest fund to date and putting you in stead with other mega funds. Do you still consider...