The new owners of Team Consulting
Many of the attendees at the upcoming RDD meeting in Puerto Rico who stop by Team Consulting’s table to check out the company’s Occoris inhaler probably won’t realize that the Team staff with whom they are chatting are some of the company’s new owners.
Founded in 1986, Team has developed a wide range of medical devices, including more than 20 inhalers. Until March of this year, the majority of the company’s shares were owned by co-founder Andy Fry and chairman Jerry Turner. Then in mid-March, almost 50 of Team’s employees took ownership of the company.
According to CEO Dan Flicos, the decision to sell the company to its staff just seemed like the right way to maintain the company’s commitment to excellence into the future: “One of the problems that small private companies have is how do you deal with succession. Most people reach for the venture capitalists or look to sell the company but we really, really didn’t want to do that; we wanted to keep the company owned by the staff because it has quite a special culture. We strongly, passionately believe that companies such as Team should be owned by the staff.
Flicos says that he was overwhelmed by the staff response to the buyout offer. “I think it speaks volumes for Team,” he notes, “that the employees really believe in what they do and are prepared to not only do their day job but put their hands in their pockets as well.”
Management communicated openly with the staff throughout the 14-month process that eventually led to the buyout, Flicos adds, including the earliest talks with corporate finance advisers and venture capitalists as the company explored its options. One of the biggest concerns raised by staff members with respect to a possible sale to an investor, competitor or client, he says, was the potential effect on Team’s culture.
