|
Wilbert F. Schwartz
Wilbert F. Schwartz has served as a Managing Director
of Source Companies, LLC since 1995. He has extensive middle market
corporate finance experience and senior level business experience,
much of which involves leading companies through rapid and radical
change. From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Schwartz also served as the insurance
industry's Trustee in the liquidation of two major life insurance
companies: the Executive Life Insurance Company of California and
Confederation Life-US. From 1999 to 2004 he served as a family business
advisor to Neyer Companies, a fifth-generation real estate development
business located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1999, he has been a
Trustee of Cincinnati Works, Inc., where he is Chairman of the Investment
Committee and Chairman of the Endowment Committee. He has been a
Member of the Board of Advisors of Business Information Solutions
(BIS) since 2000. BIS is a data management and record storage company
in Greater Cincinnati. In 2005 and 2006, he headed the effort to
renovate and open the Sheraton Cincinnati North. He also managed
all aspects of the sale of the property and business to another
investor group. Previously he was President, CEO and Board Member
of Grubb & Ellis (NYSE, GBE), the largest publicly traded real
estate firm. Prior to that position, Mr. Schwartz was a senior officer
of the Prudential Insurance Company of America. While at Prudential,
he served as the Chief Strategy Officer, led Prudential's $340 million
acquisition of Merrill Lynch's residential real estate service assets,
and built and ran two startup business units: Prudential Capital
Corporation, a merchant bank, and Prudential Real Estate Affiliates,
the franchiser of a network of more than 500 independent companies.
He began his career with IBM, where he held a number of marketing,
sales management, and product management positions.
During much of his career with Prudential, Mr. Schwartz
specialized in the financial advisory and corporate finance needs
of medium-sized companies. In 1981, he was one of the co-founders
of Prudential Capital Corporation which, during Mr. Schwartz's involvement,
participated in over two thousand private placements, mergers, acquisitions,
leveraged buyouts, and project financings for closely held, medium-sized
businesses. Prudential Capital provided advisory, structuring and
syndication services as well as direct investment. Mr. Schwartz,
as a senior member of the "Credit Committee," reviewed
and approved all aspects of Prudential Capital's activities. During
the period of his involvement with Prudential Capital, the organization
went from start-up to over $20 billion of invested assets. Later,
Prudential asked Mr. Schwartz to lead a failing subsidiary which
franchises privately held real estate companies. He turned the company
profitable by focusing on client satisfaction, repricing offerings
and cutting costs.
In 1992, Warburg Pincus acquired a controlling interest
in Grubb & Ellis. They asked Mr. Schwartz to leave Prudential
and to turnaround this troubled real estate service company. There
he redirected the business focus from non productive to productive
areas, reduced overhead, sold off unprofitable subsidiaries, negotiated
significant claims and liabilities to settlement, and refinanced
the re-engineered company. Under his leadership, Grubb & Ellis
saw its first profit in five years.
Mr. Schwartz holds a BBA (1964) and MBA (1970) from
the University of Cincinnati. He also graduated from the American
College's Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) curriculum (1981). He
is a graduate of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound (1987) and completed
Harvard's Graduate School of Business Advance Management Program
(1988). He has been awarded the designation of Chartered Financial
Analyst (CFA) by The Association for Investment Management Research
(1989). Mr. Schwartz recently completed board assignments with Capitol
First Corporation (NASDBB: CFRC) and Real Health Laboratories. Mr.
Schwartz is a member of the Advisory Board for the Dean of the Business
School at the University of Cincinnati and a Member of the Board
of UCATS (University of Cincinnati Athletic Teams Scholarship) organization.
He is also Chairman of the Finance Council of St. John Fisher Roman
Catholic Church and a member of the Terrace Park Country Club. Mr.
Schwartz resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.
|
