Tag: Tom Gores

Omari Sanfoka II: The Pistons have …

Tom Gores: My wife, Holly, and I have …

Golf cart-maker Club Car sold to investment firm run by Detroit Pistons owner

Club Car is one of the world’s largest makers of golf cars and other electric, low-speed vehicles.

As rounds of golf played in the U.S. surge, mechanical equipment manufacturer Ingersoll Rand Inc. has agreed to sell golf car-maker Club Car to Platinum Equity, an investment firm and holding company founded and operated by Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores. The price: $1.7 billion, Platinum Equity said.

Founded in 1958 and based in Augusta, Georgia, Club Car is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of golf carts and other low-speed vehicles, especially electric versions for a wide range of commercial and consumer applications. The company’s carts can be found at many golf courses across the United States and globally.

“Club Car is an iconic golf brand that for more than 60 years has set the industry standard for quality and innovation,” Gores, who is Platinum Equity’s chairman and CEO, said in a media release announcing the sale. “We appreciate Ingersoll Rand’s confidence in our ability to build on that legacy and support Club Car’s continued growth and expansion as a standalone company.”

Ingersoll Rand bought Club Car in 1995, and Reuters reported the deal is part of an effort to pay down debt and streamline Ingersoll Rand, which last year merged its industrial business with Gardner Denver Holdings.

The media release said Platinum Equity has 25 years’ experience acquiring and operating global businesses that have been peeled out of large corporate entities. In recent years the firm has acquired businesses from Ball Corporation, Emerson Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Newell Brands, Office Depot, Pitney Bowes and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, among others.

“Demand for electric vehicles across many product platforms and geographies is at an all-time high,” said Club Car President Mark Wagner in a media release. Wagner will stay in his current role under Platinum Equity’s ownership. “Golf remains a very stable, healthy business while our consumer and commercial markets are rapidly growing around the world. As our product line and geographic reach have expanded, so has the complexity of our business. Platinum’s experience and global resources will be vital to helping us continue that growth and to achieving our long-term ambitions.”

[lawrence-related id=778085294]

This will be the seventh straight year …

This will be the seventh straight year that Platinum Equity, the firm Gores founded in 1995, will sponsor the Jalen Rose Golf Classic, the annual fundraiser for the school located in the northeast Detroit neighborhood where Rose grew up. Hosted by the Detroit Golf Club on Sunday and Monday, the event will follow the club’s social distancing guidelines and protocols as the world still copes with the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be the 10th time celebrities and politicians will come together to help the school’s mission to provide an educational lifeline that starts in the ninth grade and lasts through college.

It’s support that Rose finds even more …

It’s support that Rose finds even more relevant now with big business trying to find the right words and actions to address decades of systemic racism in this country. “You see corporations and companies sending out e-mails and promising to be more diverse, and how they are open to make change and to listen,” Rose said. “At 47, I’ve heard that my whole life, but then there are some people that actually step up and do it. That’s what Tom and Holly was able to do with JRLA. And that support has been there since day one. Whether it’s donating so we can get some of the things done at JRLA, but also sponsoring our golf outings and bringing other relationships to the table that either become donors or people that show support in another way, it’s major.”

It ended in a way he wouldn’t have …

It ended in a way he wouldn’t have liked, not meshing with new owner Tom Gores after a simpatico partnership with late Pistons owner William Davidson. It didn’t mean he became stupid overnight, or lost his basketball acumen. It merely meant it was time to move on after 29 years with one franchise in one city, and he needed to recharge his batteries, take a step back and re-evaluate an evolving league.