CIT Veteran Marc Heller Joins MMG Advisors
Marc Heller, a factoring veteran who until last year was vice chairman of CIT Commercial Services, is putting his fashion finance experience to work in the world of dealmaking.
Heller has joined Allan Ellinger’s MMG Advisors as a senior adviser and will work with companies in retail and the consumer products industry on mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and other initiatives.
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While Heller might be flexing some new muscles advising on the buying and selling of companies, his years at CIT, which extends trade financing to a vast swath of the retail industry, give him a particular insight into fashion.
The good news is, Heller sees the economy as improving.
“The consumer is still buying,” he said. “I think everybody needs to relook at their businesses like Macy’s announced today.”
Tony Spring, the new chief executive officer of Macy’s, laid out plans on Tuesday to close 150 of its namesake stores to reinvigorate the company. The company is simultaneously fending off a proxy fight after nixing a takeover offer from Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management.
“Maybe it’s just a change of the guard or maybe it’s the attack from the outside world, but everybody’s [looking] look at their business,” Heller said.
“The retail environment is reasonably OK. I wouldn’t say strong. I’m certainly not saying weak,” he said. “There are segments of it that are doing great and there are segments of it that are still getting up to speed. Look at what the retailers and the vendors survived after a pandemic. The fact that so many of them are still standing is a tribute to all of them.”
But after three years of pandemic and post-pandemic change, the world is starting to turn more to dealmaking.
Ellinger, who is senior managing partner at MMG, said: “We’ve seen a lot of activity on the strategic side. Activity on the [private equity] side is starting to come back. I think it’s coming back slower than on the strategic side.”
Strategic acquirers — like Tapestry Inc., which is in the process of buying competitor Capri Holdings — have established businesses and are looking to wheel and deal to augment those operations. They often are willing to pay more than private equity players, which usually look to keep the businesses they buy whole so they can be sold again.
“On the strategic side, there are a number of large companies who would like to continue to grow their businesses,” Ellinger said. “Growing organically tends to be a slower process. So they’re using their financing capabilities to look at opportunities in the marketplace and make acquisitions.”
It’s a market that has some companies looking for partnerships that can help them close deals, like Guess Inc. and brand management firm WHP Global’s agreement to jointly buy Rag & Bone.
“It’s a good way if you have a strategic that would like to buy a brand, who can’t afford or doesn’t want to take the risk of paying for the entire purchase price,” Ellinger said. “Leveraging off of a WHP or [Authentic Brands Group] or a Marquee is a wonderful way of getting a transaction done. You just need people to understand how to engineer it and get it to market properly.”
MMG has advised on more than $5 billion worth of transactions since it was founded in 1989.
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