 | |
| BGL | |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | September 1989 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Michael Gibbons (Senior managing director) |
| Products | Investment banking |
| Website | www |
Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL) is an American middle market investment bank that is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.
In September 1989, Michael Gibbons started a private equity firm in Ohio with his friend Kevin Brown who was a wealthy architect. Just six weeks after founding it, Brown died in a powerboat racing accident during his pursuit of the world championship. Suddenly without a business partner or the capital provided by him, Gibbons had to quickly change strategy. As an experienced banker who previously worked at McDonald & Co., Gibbons started providing investment banking services to private and public corporations. Gibbons has stated he admired the partnership structure at McDonald & Co. and wanted to replicate that at BGL. [1] [2]
In 1995, BGL opened a second office in Chicago which has become the firm's largest office. Scott Lang was the founder of the new office and would become BGL's CEO until his departure in 2007. [1] [2] [3]
In 2010 following the Great Recession, BGL management realized that M&A is very cyclical and therefore needed to diversify the business to fill in the gaps. As a result, BGL established a real estate investment banking group which handled projects such as the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the DoubleTree hotel in Youngstown. [1]
In 2014, BGL moved its headquarters to One Cleveland Center. [4]
BGL has since expanded into additional sectors such as industrials, environmental services, healthcare and consumer products. It has also opened additional offices across the United States including offices in Los Angeles and New York City in 2022. [1]
Gibbons has run as a Republican in the 2018 United States Senate election in Ohio and the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio. During his run in 2022, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Gibbons held a $2.8 million stake in Lordstown Motors and later BGL advised it on a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) named DiamondPeak Holdings to became listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange on October 23, 2020. The stock crash months later amid a federal investigation of exaggerated order claims to investors and concerns about business viability. Experts stated Gibbon's role was conflict of interest as he had incentive to make Lordstown Motors go public otherwise he could potentially be left holding illiquid private stock. Gibbons stated he believed there was no conflict of interest and downplayed his work with Lordstown Motors saying he acquired the stake during an earlier round of financing. He also stated he was out of the picture by the time Lordstown Motors decided to pursue the SPAC merger but this was contradicted by a Lordstown Motors SEC filing in late 2020 that stated it hired BGL to serve as its financial advisor regarding the SPAC merger. [5]
Other notable deals BGL were involved in include the sale of Ben Venue Laboratories to Boehringer Ingelheim, the sale of Realty One to Insignia Financial Group and the redevelopment of the Glenn Research Center. [2] [6]
National City Corporation was a regional bank holding company based in Cleveland, Ohio, founded in 1845; it was once one of the ten largest banks in America in terms of deposits, mortgages and home equity lines of credit. Subsidiary National City Mortgage is credited for doing the first mortgage in America. The company operated through an extensive banking network primarily in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin, and also served customers in selected markets nationally. Its core businesses included commercial and retail banking, mortgage financing and servicing, consumer finance, and asset management. The bank reached out to customers primarily through mass advertising and offered comprehensive banking services online. In its last years, the company was commonly known in the media by the abbreviated NatCity, with its investment banking arm even bearing the official name NatCity Investments.
A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public company is bought by the private company through an asset swap and share issue. The transaction typically requires reorganization of capitalization of the acquiring company.
KeyBank is an American regional bank headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, and the 25th largest bank in the United States. Organized under the publicly traded KeyCorp, KeyBank was formed from the 1994 merger of the Cleveland-based Society Corporation, which operated Society National Bank, and the Albany-headquartered KeyCorp. The company today operates over 1,000 branches and 40,000 ATMs, mostly concentrated in the Midwest and Northeast United States, though also operates in the Pacific Northwest as well as in Alaska, Colorado, Texas and Utah.
Daniel Gilbert is an American billionaire, businessman, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and majority owner of Rocket Mortgage, founder of Rock Ventures, and owner of the National Basketball Association's Cleveland Cavaliers. Gilbert owns several sports franchises, including the American Hockey League's Cleveland Monsters, and the NBA G League's Cleveland Charge. He operates the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, home to the Cavaliers and Monsters. As of January 2023, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$18.3 billion.
A special-purpose acquisition company, also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making the private company public without going through the initial public offering process, which often carries significant procedural and regulatory burdens. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), SPACs are created specifically to pool funds to finance a future merger or acquisition opportunity within a set timeframe; these opportunities usually have yet to be identified while raising funds.
Perella Weinberg Partners is an American global financial services firm focused on investment banking advisory services.
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated is an American bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Its banking subsidiary, The Huntington National Bank, operates 1047 banking offices, primarily in the Midwest: 459 in Ohio, 290 in Michigan, 80 in Minnesota, 51 in Pennsylvania, 45 in Indiana, 35 in Illinois, 32 in Colorado, 29 in West Virginia, 16 in Wisconsin, and 10 in Kentucky.
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American asset management firm that primarily invests in alternative assets. As of 2022, the company had $548 billion of assets under management, including $392 billion invested in credit, including mezzanine capital, hedge funds, non-performing loans, and collateralized loan obligations, $99 billion invested in private equity, and $46.2 billion invested in real assets, which includes real estate and infrastructure. The company invests money on behalf of pension funds, financial endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, as well as other institutional and individual investors.
Colliers International Group Inc. is a Canada-based diversified professional services and investment management company with approximately 18,000 employees in more than 400 offices in 65 countries.
Guggenheim Partners, LLC is a global investment and advisory financial services firm that engages in investment banking, asset management, capital markets services, and insurance services.
Andrew Mead Murstein is an American businessman. He is the founder, president, board member and, with his family, the largest shareholder of Medallion Financial Corp., an investment company publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol MFIN. MFIN and its predecessor companies have invested over $10 billion in various companies throughout the U.S.
Kenneth C. "Kenn" Ricci is an American aviation entrepreneur, the principal of Directional Aviation Capital, which owns or invests in various aviation enterprises including Flight Options and Flexjet, where he is chairman. He is an operating partner at Resilience Capital Partners, a private equity firm with a variety of portfolio companies, including an investment in Flight Options, and has helped found or lead other companies, including Nextant Aerospace and Constant Aviation.
The 2018 United States Senate election in Ohio took place November 6, 2018. The candidate filing deadline was February 7, 2018; the primary election was held May 8, 2018. Incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown—the only remaining elected Democratic statewide officeholder in Ohio at the time of the election—won his reelection bid for a third term, defeating Republican U.S. Representative Jim Renacci by a 6.84% margin in the general election, larger than the 6% margin in the Election six years earlier. This was one of ten Democratic-held Senate seats up for election in a state won by Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Renacci conceded defeat on November 7, 2018.
Workhorse Group Incorporated, originally AMP Electric Vehicles, is an original equipment manufacturer and technology company headquartered in Sharonville, Ohio, U.S. Workhorse makes commercial electric vehicles and telematics software designed for last-mile delivery. Their products include commercial electric vehicles and the Metron telematics software system.
CI Financial is a Canadian investment management company based in Toronto, Ontario. It offers investment management and wealth management services targeted to high net worth retail investors, as well as brokerage and trading services to portfolio managers and institutional investors.
Nu Ride Inc. is an American electric vehicle automaker located in Lordstown, Ohio. The company was based at the Lordstown Assembly plant, previously a General Motors factory. Lordstown Motors was known for its Lordstown Endurance electric pickup truck. In March 2024, the company emerged from its September 2023 bankruptcy restructuring as Nu Ride Inc., headquartered in New York City.
The Lordstown Endurance is a full-size battery electric pickup truck with wheel hub motors manufactured by Lordstown Motors in collaboration with Foxconn at its Ohio factory. The Endurance entered limited production in September 2022 with plans to manufacture no more than 500 vehicles through June of 2023. It is the company's first production automobile.
The 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Ohio. Republican writer and venture capitalist JD Vance defeated Democratic U.S. Representative Tim Ryan to succeed retiring incumbent Republican Rob Portman.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG) is an American media and technology company headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. It runs the Truth Social social-media platform and is primarily owned by former U.S. president Donald Trump.
CBIZ, Inc. is a national provider of financial, insurance and advisory services headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. CBIZ is one of the largest accounting, insurance brokerage, financial and advisory services providers in the United States with more than 120 offices and nearly 7,000 employees. Its common stock has been traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1996, under the symbol "CBZ" since 1997, and is one of the country's 10 largest accounting firms.
