It’s been a busy couple of months for the architecture and design firm NELSON. It was wrapping up its merger with Wakefield Beasley & Associates and WB Interiors, a deal that was announced last November. It recapitalized its business with two financial partners, H.I.G. Capital and Prudential. And today, NELSON announced that it had entered into a merger agreement with FRCH Design Worldwide, an architecture and design firm with three offices and 200-plus employees, which specializes in retail, hospitality, and mixed-use.
NELSON’s Chairman and CEO, John “Ozzie” Nelson Jr., and FRCH’s CEO, Jim Tippmann, will serve as Co-CEOs of the combined company, which now consists of 25 offices and more than 1,100 employees. FRCH Design Worldwide will be known as FRCH a NELSON company.
Tippmann tells BD+C that he and Nelson started talking “15-16 months ago” about the possibility of merging their two businesses. Such a deal made sense, explains Tippmann, because “we’re both operating in a dynamic, changing business environment.”
FRCH, with estimated revenue of $40 million, had concluded that it either had to acquire a company itself, or find a partner like NELSON that had the geographic reach FRCH needed in order to compete for business from larger clients, especially those propagating brands in multiple markets.
Just as the Wakefield Beasley deal got NELSON deeper into the mixed-use realm, merging with FRCH would bring into NELSON’s stable “a sizable hospitality business,” says Nelson. His company would also benefit from FRCH’s “big retail engine” in a sector where NELSON on its own has had difficulty gaining traction.
Jim Tippmann (left) and John “Ozzie” Nelson Jr., Co-CEOs of NELSON, will manage their company after the merger by region and practice sector. Image: NELSON
As Co-CEOs, Nelson and Tippmann have crafted a regionally defined operating model. Tippmann says he will be “the first point of contact” for NELSON’s business in the Northeast and Southeast, and Nelson will take the lead for its offices in the Midwest and West. Practice responsibilities will align with each of the merging company’s specialties: for example, Tippmann will oversee retail and “consumer interface” projects, whereas office, financial, and industrial projects will fall under Nelson’s domain.
The combined company’s holding company will continue to be based in Minnesota. But Cincinnati—FRCH’s headquarters city—is now NELSON’s biggest office. Atlanta is the company’s biggest market, and will be managed by two offices there. Over the coming months, the leadership of both organizations will further integrate their expanded service offering.
Nelson tells BD+C that he still sees his company as a “global boutique” with an office structure that Tippmann thinks is now “a contemporary model, where leaders can be anywhere in the U.S.” FRCH and NELSON both use video conferencing to connect their offices, which came in handy yesterday when the CEOs were announcing the merger to their employees via electronic town hall-like meetings. (Nelson notes that he spent 2½ hours with 250 people in his company’s Atlanta offices answering their questions. “You want to be as transparent as you can in those meetings,” he says.)
“I couldn’t have been more pleased with how this came together,” says Tippmann.
Nelson says his company has gotten to a size where “we will have an opportunity to grow organically and attract talent.”
However, having been involved in 40 mergers during his 30-year career with the company, Nelson says he’s still on the lookout for acquisition candidates in Southern California and Texas, and for firms that would strengthen NELSON’s competitive position in such sectors as industrial architecture and healthcare.
What he will avoid, though, is finalizing a merger just to get it done. “Culture trumps everything, and you don’t want to do a deal that leaves you with an operating nightmare.”
Related Stories
| Mar 21, 2012
ABI remains positive for fourth straight month
Highest spike in inquiries for new projects since 2007.
| Mar 21, 2012
Iowa’s Mercy Medical Center’s new Emergency Department constructed using Lean design
New Emergency Department features a "racetrack" design with a central nurses' station encircled by 19 private patient examination rooms and 2 trauma treatment rooms.
| Mar 21, 2012
Clary, Hendrickson named regional directors for HDR Architecture
New directors will be responsible for expanding and strengthening the firm throughout the central region.
| Mar 20, 2012
FMI releases 2012 first quarter construction outlook
The last time construction put in place was at this level was 2000-2001.
| Mar 20, 2012
Ceco Building Systems names Romans marketing director
Romans joins Ceco Building Systems with over 15 years in marketing and customer service.
| Mar 20, 2012
UT Arlington launches David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture
Symposium about Texas architecture planned for April.
| Mar 20, 2012
Stanford’s Knight Management Center Awarded LEED Platinum
The 360,000-sf facility underscores what is taught in many of the school’s electives such as Environmental Entrepreneurship and Environmental Science for Managers and Policy Makers, as well as in core classes covering sustainability across the functions of business.
| Mar 20, 2012
New office designs at San Diego’s Sunroad Corporate Center
Traditional office space being transformed into a modern work environment, complete with private offices, high-tech conference rooms, a break room, and an art gallery, as well as standard facilities and amenities.
| Mar 19, 2012
Obama’s positioned to out-regulate Bush in second term
Proposed ozone rule would cost $19 billion to $90 billion in 2020, according to the White House.
| Mar 19, 2012
Skanska promotes Saunders to VP/GM of Bayshore Concrete Products
During his more than 13 years with Bayshore, Saunders has provided products for Victory Bridge in New Jersey, Route 52 Causeway in Ocean City, N.J., and for numerous piers at Naval Station Norfolk and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
