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Kenneth J. Finkelstein, CACEO, Toronto, Ontario Business History and Transaction SummaryRIDE Inc. - 1992 to 1996 After twelve years of building one of the largest private client practices in the accounting firm of Fuller Jenks, Landau, and serving as an Executive Partner, Kenny left public accounting and joined RIDE Inc., in 1995.Headquartered in Seattle, WA, RIDE was one of pioneers in the emerging snowboard sports market. Within two years of start-up, RIDE with global sales of over $75 MM, released its NASDAQ listed IPO at $4.50. In 1995, the company was listed as one of the “Most Successful IPOs in the Pacific Northwest”. At its apex, the company had a market capitalization of approximately $400MM. GEN-X Equipment Inc. - 1996 to 2006 GEN-X (formerly CAS Sports International) was a spin-off from RIDE in 1996 and was co-owned by James Salter and Kenny. Head-quartered in Toronto, Canada, GEN-X was a diversified company that specialized in selling off-price sporting goods and winter sports equipment. In 1998, GEN-X was sold to Global Sports, Inc. (now GSIC, NASDAQ) for $5MM in cash proceeds and 2.4MM shares of Global. Global Sports focused on designing, developing, and marketing branded athletic consumer product lines. It owned the athletic footwear brand for women, RYKA and YUKON an outdoor casual - rugged footwear brand for men.In 1999, the company implemented a fully integrated e-commerce platform. Using one inventory, and providing the fulfillment, delivery and collections, the Company, under a licensing arrangement with many of the major sporting goods retailers, began an intensive on-line selling program for athletic wear and sporting goods. Softbank Capital Partners invested $80MM (for a 30% equity stake) in 2000. In 2000, Global made the decision to sell off the GEN-X business, once again, and this was re-acquired by Kenny and Jamie Salter. A new strategy was formulated in 2001 to begin acquiring well known consumer brands that were experiencing some financial stress and needed rejuvenation and revitalization, thereby leveraging their financial and operational expertise to return these brands back to profitability. The company began it’s roll-up by integrating previously acquired LAMAR Snowboards with the newly acquired assets of TEAR DROP Golf (which included the golf brands: “TOMMY ARMOUR” “RAM”, “TEAR DROP” AND “ZEBRA”). The company continued it’s roll-up in 2001 by acquiring the assets of VOLANT Ski Company and all of the controlling shares of First Team Sports Inc. (an American Stock Exchange listed company) and assumed control of its major brands: ULTRAWHEELS (in line skates) and HESPELER hockey. First Team Sports was then privatized and it’s business operations were consolidated into the main business center in Toronto. In Q3 2002, GEN-X with an enterprise value exceeding $95MM was sold to HUFFY Corporation (a NASDAQ listed company). In 2004, Huffy made the decision to exit from the excess inventory business and agreed to sell GEN-X back to Kenny and Jamie. This business was immediately re-sold to the Forzani Group; (FGL-TSX) a major national retailer for cash and stock. LIFESTYLE BRANDS Ltd–2006 Continuing the strategy to acquire value brands that needed revitalization, and in partnership with a group of investors a $15MM equity round was raised. The VISION STREET WEAR, LAMAR, LTD., RAGE, DUKES and ULTRAWHEELS brands were acquired in various transactions. The license revenue stream quickly accelerated to $3.5MM, and in Q1 2006 this company merged with Collective Licensing which owned the iconic brand AIRWALK.It was sold to Payless Shoes in April 2007 for approximately $91 million. KNIGHTSBRIDGE CAPITAL CORPORATION Founded in November, 2006 Knight’s Bridge Capital Corporation, of Toronto, Canada is a strategic investor offering convertible debt and private equity financing, across diverse industry segments. Its core competency is working closely with management of its portfolio companies and helping them formulate and meet proper targets and goals. Knight’s Bridge adds tremendous value to its capital support by providing strategic and unique business solutions, followed by stringent execution to plan. It has built a solid reputation of being highly successful and proficient in identifying attractive acquisition and investment opportunities. |
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Allan SilberChairman, Toronto, Ontario Allan Silber is the Chairman of Knight’s Bridge and is Chairman and CEO of Counsel Corporation, which he founded in 1979. Mr. Silber will be involved in the investment decisions made by the Fund and is a principal investor in the Fund. Throughout its history Counsel Corporation has had a number successes including: (i) Counsel Trust Company (grew Counsel Trust Company from $3.6 million in assets and $2.5 million of equity when acquired in 1979, to $1.9 billion of assets and $114 million of equity when it was sold in June 1990 for approximately $141 million); (ii) FirstLine Trust (pioneered the mortgage-backed securities business in Canada through FirstLine Trust); (iii) PharMerica (transformed Choice Drug Systems from an institutional pharmacy with annual revenues of $40 million in 1994 into PharMerica, Inc., a company with $1.1 billion in revenues in 1998); (iv) American HomePatient (built American HomePatient into one of the largest home health care providers in the U.S. by expanding it from 18 centres and $13 million in annual revenues in 1988 to over 300 centres and revenues of $400 million in 1998); (v) Stadtlander Drug Co. (acquired as a specialty retail pharmacy business, and grew its revenues from $86 million in 1995 to $460 million in 1998, just prior to its sale); and (vi) Fleetwood Fine Furniture (acquired by Counsel in May 2006 for $29 million through its corporate merchant banking activities. Under Counsel’s management Fleetwood has developed a focused management team, launched a new Asian initiative and currently has a pipeline of $40 million). |
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Ira Thomas Traves, LL.BManaging Director, Toronto, Ontario Ira Thomas Traves is a Director of Knight’s Bridge Capital Corp., Toronto and is a seasoned professional business leader. Ira has had over twenty-five years of senior management experience in the technology sector both here in Canada and in the United States. He was the founding resident officer and division President of Packard Bell NEC Computers, for over 14 years, leading the Canadian business from its start in 1985. Packard Bell NEC was the pioneer and quickly established itself as the market leader in sales and distribution of personal computers and peripherals for the home market. It was the first personal computer manufacturer to recognize the massive opportunity of distributing computers and related products through national retailers and mass merchandisers, generating Canadian annual sales of over $200 Million. Ira has recently co-founded and led a successful Los Angeles, California based business specializing in smart card technologies for the Internet that supports affinity marketing services and applications for international credit card issuers and their related national banking members. (This company secured a $30 MM USD equity financing). After the successful sale of that business he subsequently invested in, founded and built the new Canadian division of a global manufacturer and distributor of proprietary imaging products. He has been able to combine his significant strategic sales, marketing and operational experience and he has successfully leveraged these management and leadership skills in leading both large enterprise businesses as well as start ups in Canada and the United States. He truly understands private equity and sophisticated deal transactions, he has been on both sides of the negotiating table.Ira is also an Ontario lawyer, and a member in good standing of The Law Society of Upper Canada since 1977. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law and has worked for a number of years in the early part of his professional career, as a business development and advisory manager for the national accounting firm, Ernst & Young (then Clarkson Gordon) in its Entrepreneurial Services Group.Ira presently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of some of the Knight’s Bridge portfolio companies. |
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Howard LindzonPartner, Phoenix, Arizona Howard Lindzon is a Partner in the Fund and a principal of Knight’s Bridge. For the last 10 years Mr. Lindzon has managed his hedge fund Lindzon Capital Partners and recently he sold his startup videoblog Wallstrip to CBS Corp. and continues to spearhead the show and web video as a consultant for CBS. Mr. Lindzon has tremendous insight into new media industry and is a very active angel investor in the financial and internet business sectors. Mr. Lindzon also writes one of the most popular financial blogs at howardlindzon.com with over 50,000 unique visitors/month. Mr. Lindzon (through his hedge fund) has made many successful minority angel investments including Rent.com (sold to Ebay in 2005 for $415 million), Lifelock (lead investors include Bessemer Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) and Internet Brands (NASDAQ). Through his hedge fund Mr. Lindzon is currently invested in a number of new media and internet businesses including, MyTrade.com, Limos.com, Covestor.com and Blogtalkradio.com. Mr. Lindzon received an MBA at Arizona State University and an MIM from The American Graduate School of International Management. |
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Gary Taylor, CAManaging Director, Toronto, Ontario Gary Taylor, CA is a managing director of Knight’s Bridge. Mr. Taylor also serves as the Director of Taxation for Counsel Corporation, the parent company of Knight’s Bridge, and has extensive experience in structuring merger and acquisition transactions both within Canada and the United States in the 5 years since joining the company. Prior to that, Mr. Taylor worked as a Senior Manager in the tax consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Toronto where he assisted clients through developing tax planning solutions for medium-sized and large multinational corporations. Mr. Taylor has extensive experience in tax, finance, accounting and business matters across multiple industries including real estate, technology, entertainment, telecom, health care, and manufacturing. He has structured new business acquisitions in the form of tax-efficient flow-through vehicles for investors and creatively found ways to share tax benefits with business vendors leading to overall purchase price reductions for new acquisitions. |








