Case
Study Summaries
Case study summaries allow you an efficient way to quickly view and understand the types of clients we engage with and how we serve them. The examples shown here are representative of the variety and scope of businesses, organizations and groups we work with, but are not meant to describe all client services in detail. We encourage you to contact us with specific questions about specialized requirements.
3D Systems Corporation
A publicly-traded company founded in 1986, 3D Systems provides solid imaging products and solutions that help reduce the time and cost of designing products to facilitate direct and indirect manufacturing. Its systems utilize patented technologies that create physical objects from digital input. Based in Valencia, California, 3D Systems serves customers in 80 countries, with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Hong Kong and Japan, and employs more than 500 people worldwide.
In August 1999, 3D Systems retained Regent Pacific to review the company's operations and strategic direction and subsequently were engaged to manage the company. In conjunction with this program, executives of Regent Pacific filled key executive positions including CEO, CFO and vice president of sales and marketing.
The company extended its agreement with Regent Pacific for two additional twelve month periods through September 2002. The board of directors took that action based on the results achieved by Regent Pacific and the board's confidence in "their ability to continue to achieve improved results in the future." Since September 2002 3D Systems has continued to display healthy and profitable growth.
Accelerated Networks, Inc.
Shortly after its IPO, Accelerated Networks' customer-base collapsed
in the telecom meltdown. In an effort to recover, the company initiated a
series of unfocussed product development, sales and marketing initiatives.
The company's board of directors retained Regent Pacific
to manage the business and explore strategic options for the company. Prior
to retaining Regent Pacific the company estimated that it only had enough
cash to sustain its operations for about three months.
Regent Pacific focused the company's sales and marketing initiatives on well-financed
customers and product development on "carrier-class" products. Simultaneously,
Regent Pacific reduced operating costs and eliminated unprofitable customer-service
activities. After Regent Pacific evaluated strategic options, the company
was merged with Occam Networks, Inc.
Calico Commerce
A publicly-traded company founded in 1994 providing an e-business suite of configuration management software. Regent Pacific was engaged by this struggling software corporation after its market cap had declined form $450 million to $6 million in less than a year. The company had never made a profit in seven years of operation and was experiencing a precipitous drop in revenue. Cash reserves were quickly being depleted.
The board retained Regent Pacific to financially and operationally restructure the company, and ultimately, to maximize value for the stakeholders. The Regent Pacific team assumed the key "C" level positions and a seat on the board. It soon became apparent that the company was too far along in a downward spiral with too few resources to turn it around. The most responsible and appropriate alternative was to find a buyer for the intellectual property and operating assets. Additionally, Regent Pacific needed to judiciously wind down, dissolve or liquidate the company's subsidiaries and other business functions under the protection of a voluntary Chapter 11 filing.
An agreement was reached to sell the intellectual property and operating assets to PeopleSoft. After the sale and bankruptcy proceedings were finalized all creditors have been paid in full. The shareholders have realized a return two to three times higher than initially thought possible.
European Exterior Lighting Company
A privately held manufacturer and developer of exterior lighting products originally founded in the 1920s. It is active in Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium. In the first two countries it is considered to be market leader.
In January 2004, the company retained Richard Schmit, the Dutch partner of Regent Pacific to manage the company through a turnaround period and guide it to a successful exit strategy for its majority VC shareholder.
The Company embarked on a strategy to first become self sustaining (profitable), secondly regain its strategic development momentum and thirdly find an adequate divestiture candidate where the company’s strategic development will provide the maximum synergy potentials.
That strategy which:
- Encompassed a restructuring of the company’s management and functional groups, closing down non-core activities, reduction of debt and reduction of cost to match revenues.
- A focus on significant changes in the factory (from push to Pull) introducing JIT practices, revitalizing strategic product development programs and restoring HR values and practices. This strategy resulted in increased efficiencies, improved lead-times, new key products and an increased organizational effectiveness.
- Created a successful and fast divesting process
Megapath Networks, Inc.
A privately held company founded in 1993, MegaPath is a leading provider of managed IP services with particular focus on businesses with distributed offices throughout North America. MegaPath leverages its wide selection of broadband connectivity, Virtual Private Networks, Voice over IP, and Security technologies to enables businesses to lower costs, increase security and enhance productivity. Business of all sizes can easily and securely communicate between their headquarters, branch offices, retail locations, mobile workers and business partners.
In August 2005 MegaPath retained Regent Pacific to manage the company and, as a first step, to review company operations and strategic direction. In conjunction with this program executives of Regent Pacific filled key director and executive positions including Chairman, CEO, VP Product Management, VP Customer Support.
The Company embarked on a dual strategy to both become self sustaining as well as seek a merger partner to create a more viable and sustainable scale of operations.
That strategy which:
- Encompassed a restructuring of the company’s management and functional groups, a focused accelerated productization initiative that resulted in the launching of a major new product suite at the end of Q1, 2006 as well as a shift from customized applications to more standard and re-producible products, significantly improved operating performance, and
- Created a successful small acquisition and merger process
Resulted in the successful merger of the company, at 2 times its August 2005 market value, in April 2006.
Sonoma Winery
A small boutique winery in Sonoma that was under pressure from its bankers to reach break even engaged Regent Pacific to perform a Situation Analysis™ in early 2005. Regent Pacific identified three areas of weakness: business sustainability, strategic focus and clarity and management, organization structure and decision making and developed a restructuring plan to address these issues.
Regent Pacific was engaged as management to implement the restructuring plan. The restructuring plan called for right sizing the current production, reducing the number of wines, improving sales and profits, and redirecting the sales effort. In addition, executive management was restructured to address capability in certain positions and a permanent General Manager was retained after the plan was implemented.
The plan was acceptable to the Company’s lenders and was the basis for a new $5 million financing secured at below market rates with future reductions based on milestone achievement. The plan also met the owner’s needs relative to future investment and business value.Verity, Inc.
Regent Pacific was engaged by this publicly-traded software corporation in 1997 after its market cap had declined from $135 million to about $38 million in less than a year. The company had never been profitable in its nine years of existence and was experiencing a 60% employee turnover rate. Spending was out of control with five acquisitions in nine months and the company was hemorrhaging cash.
The board engaged Regent Pacific to assess the situation, develop viable alternatives, refocus the company, manage it through the crisis and implement a successful turnaround strategy. It was imperative that Regent Pacific bring the company to positive cash flow and P&L breakeven with limited cash resources.
The Regent Pacific team assumed the company’s key "C" level positions and led the company to profitability and positive cash flow in less than a year. Revenues grew more than 50% per year for the next three years, and pretax profit margins were in the 25% to 35% range for much of this timeframe. The company enjoyed a total of eight and a half years of revenue growth and improved profitability under Regent Pacific’s leadership, before being successfully acquired in December 2005 by Autonomy Corporation PLC for a 30% spot premium and an 80% aggregate value premium.. This M&A transaction netted Verity shareholders over $500 million in cash proceeds and created the undisputed number one software company in the enterprise search space.