Smart Business Magazine, June 2019

30 Smart Business Cleveland June 2019 us that dont fit neatly in our box When we get outside of our comfort zone it creates more risk because were less capable of analyzing and assessing the opportunity How challenging is it to stick to your target profile We do a good job of marketing ourselves and getting our message out If we do a good job of that the quality of our deal flow goes up While we may not have the same volume of opportunities as maybe a firm that takes a broader perspective to the market the quality that gets into our deal funnel is quite high The investment banking community the business intermediary community the business ownership community knows what were looking for So the things that come across our desk tend to be closer to what were targeting than not Its a question we get all the time The most pressure we had to broaden our horizons was back in the late 90s when anything with dot com on it was sexy If you werent intimately involved in the internet you werent going to exist in five years We got pressure from some of our LPs The questions were what are you guys doing about internet investing Why arent you looking at internet based businesses Our answer was always the same We dont know that business What makes an investment opportunity intriguing Its all about really defining the thing that makes your business unique and defensible Its finding that defensible attribute in the marketplace that allows you to generate robust margins When we look at a business if its a manufacturing company and it doesnt have greater than 35 percent gross margin we tend to get disinterested real fast It suggests what they do is not that unique If they are north of 35 percent we see that they are doing something unique that is valued by the marketplace What have you done to differentiate your product or service offering How differentiated is it How difficult would it be to replace you as a supplier Those are the questions that get asked when we present to our investment committee Why does the business exist How difficult is it to unseat them Who are their competitors What about their product offering is unique Which is more important past performance or future potential Early in my career I was more focused on the historical performance of a company Whats it done over the last three years Ive learned that what is more important is looking at where the company is going to be in three years Its looking prospectively at the number of projects in that companys pipeline and assessing whether any of them have legs that could drive long term growth Youre not going to always be right and even when youre right it may not be to the extent that you hoped you were right But sometimes youll exceed expectations Bottom line its more important to look forward than backward www mcmcapital com We do a good job of marketing ourselves and getting our message out If we do a good job of that the quality of our deal flow goes up MARK MANSOUR SENIOR MANAGING PARTNER MCM CAPITAL DEALMAKERS DEALMAKER STRATEGIES Industrial Commercial Properties buys former Sears distribution center Industrial Commercial Properties LLC a Cleveland based commercial real estate development company has acquired a 570000 square foot former Sears distribution center on 428 acres in the Columbus suburb of Groveport The acquisition which includes a full automation package of equipment conveyors and racking adds quality warehouse and distribution space to ICPs portfolio There is a national and regional demand for logistics facilities and limited availability ICP owner Chris Semarjian said in a statement The property is situated in an active industrial corridor and a new 200000 square foot pre leased building is nearing completion next door Our property lends itself well to two tenants and there has already been substantial interest in this asset We expect it will be re tenanted in short order With the addition of the Groveport facility ICP has now acquired four properties from Sears since 2014 including the former Sears retail store at Midway Mall in Elyria Ohio which includes a freestanding Sears Auto Center and a former Kmart retail store in Streetsboro Ohio When ICP redeveloped the site of the former Randall Park Mall where Amazon is building its 900000 square foot fulfillment center in North Randall Ohio the assemblage included the adjacent Sears retail building It has been redeveloped into a multi tenant industrial building ICP currently owns over 40 million square feet of industrial and commercial space in four states with a portfolio value of 11 billion LOCAL DEALS