The Business Journal spotlights local investment bankers who are capitalizing on Wall Street’s chaos.
When entrepreneurs want to sell their business or go public, they typically enlist investment bankers to help pull off the transaction.
John Johnson knows firsthand what it’s like to sit on both sides of that table.
A 26-year veteran of the investment banking industry and the current managing director of the Spartan Group, a boutique investment bank in Pasadena, Johnson started his own blank-check public company in 2006.
That diversity of experience, he said, makes him more attuned to the particular challenges facing the business owners he advises.
“It gives me a greater appreciation for my clients, having sat in their seat,” he said. “It’s added a texture or richness that probably wasn’t there before.”
The Spartan Group, which Johnson co-founded in 2002, is small by just about any measure.
The firm focuses primarily on companies with between $25 million and $250 million in enterprise value. It has recently advised on deals for Sport Chalet Inc., a premium sporting goods retailer in La Canada Flintridge, and Scientific Technologies Inc., a manufacturer in Fremont.
The firm has about 10 employees spread across its Pasadena and San Francisco offices. But the pedigree is high: Its bankers have come from Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch and other major investment banks. What’s more, the firm is looking to bring in other bulge bracket veterans.
“We have discussions going on right now with senior level people and we expect to expand both our Los Angeles and San Francisco offices,” said Johnson, who spent close to two decades with Bank of America’s investment banking group.
It’s no coincidence that many of the Spartan Group’s deals have revolved around tech companies, including Scientific Technologies, MSC Software and Neopets Inc. Johnson worked briefly for computer company IBM during his college days at UC Berkeley before joining Bank of America’s technology group to begin his investment banking career, much of which he spent in San Francisco.
Following the dot-com crash early last decade, Johnson said he began to grow tired of working for a large investment bank. With the economy improving, many larger firms began moving up-market, he said, focusing on ever-larger companies.
With the Spartan Group, though, Johnson said he can have a hands-on approach and work closely with smaller businesses.
“I really like working with owner-entrepreneurs,” he said. “That’s part of the driving force by which we have fun and exist.”
And there are not a lot of boutique firms, he said, where you can find bankers who have both several decades of industry experience and have taken their own company public.
“Rarely do you get that level of experience and advice in the middle market,” he said.
JOHN JOHNSON, 48
Managing Director
Spartan Group, Pasadena
