Company Overview: Plantation Patterns was a domestic manufacturer and importer of outdoor soft home décor products, including outdoor cushions, patio umbrellas, and decorative pillows supplying big-box retailers.
Location: Headquartered in Birmingham, AL. with plants in Selma, AL. and Asia
Size: $75mm in Revenue and 400+ Employees
Background: EJ Marino, Jr. purchased Plantation Patterns via a buyside process through an investment bank in 2011. The goal was to restructure the business, substantially grow, and exit within a 3 to 5-year window. EJ was the majority owner and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.
Challenges: Large customer concentration, primarily competed on price, declining sales, poor profitability, weak executive leadership team and toxic company culture
Solutions:
- Shifted our go-to-market approach to emphasize product innovation, design, and domestic production
- Created a robust POS and inventory analytics package for our customers
- Designed an award-winning E-Commerce offering that introduced customization capabilities to consumers
- Implemented processes to drive out inefficiencies in our supply chain, production, and distribution facilities
- Restructured leadership team, eliminated bad actors, and made sure we had the “right people in the right seats”
- As CEO, EJ took a personal interest in each employee group and rebuilt trust in leadership across the organization
Results:
- Significantly grew sales, margins, and customer loyalty
- Substantially increased inventory turn and minimized out of stocks for our customers
- Reduced overall operating costs by +20%
- Won multiple Vendor Excellence Awards from Target and Vendor of the Year and Innovation Awards from Home Depot
- Successfully exited the business through a sell-side process in Year 6, achieving a 4.0x return on equity