Biography
Jeffrey Barman
For those interested, a detailed summary of my business experience is below.
You are welcome to network with me via my linkedin.com profile. 
Team leader, motivator, teacher and manager, with an entrepreneurial-based philosophy and spirit
Highly analytical and strategic thinker with a vision to identify and implement significant organizational change in a short time-frame
Expert in originating, analyzing, structuring, negotiating and closing financial-driven transactions
Specialist in Corporate Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Capital Financings and Valuations
Proven money maker and return generator
Principal and Co-Founder of Wonder Wash Family Laundry Centers
Wonder Wash Family Laundry Centers, a growing chain of high-quality laundromats in Southern California. Wonder Wash is a fast-growing chain of coin laundries, currently with locations in Anaheim and Downey in California. Wonder Wash is actively seeking new locations; for more information about our stores and strategic needs please visit www.wonderwashlaundry.com.
Managing Director and Co-Founder of Laundry Bridge Capital Partners Co.
Laundry Bridge Capital Partners is a new company dedicated to providing a new way of lending exclusively to the laundry industry. Laundry Bridge provides short-term, hard-money loans to coin laundry owners. Please visit www.laundrybridge.com for more information.
Managing Partner and Founder of Barman Capital LLC
In the summer of 1994, with a combination of aggression, confidence and hubris that is particular to the young, I started my own investment bank, Barman Capital LLC. From a humble beginning of a not-ringing phone set on my New York City duplex apartment’s living room floor, Barman Capital grew under my leadership during its 10 year history to a team of ten partners and employees, operating out of Beverly Hills and Manhattan. Our focus was on mergers and acquisitions and private financings, mostly but not exclusively for privately held, and often family owned, companies. Our client base was primarily in Southern California.
As a boutique banking concern, our focus was not on an industry, but rather on a size, namely firms with revenues between $10 and $100 million. It was, and remains today, my operating thesis for the firm that these types of businesses have more in common with each other in relation to their balance sheets, growth strategies, and exit/liquidation opportunities than they do with a company exactly in their space but that are also significantly larger in size. Barman Capital was known for taking a holistic approach ot each of its clients. To best understand, and thus best advise, each of our clients we took an extremely hands-on approach in our due diligence. It was our belief that we needed to become a de facto member of the team. Consequently, we learned quite a bit about how our clients and operated, and about the industries they operated in.
There are too many clients to name over a ten-year span, but among our notable transactions were the $150 million sale of Koo Koo Roo to Family Restaurants; a full-time, multi-year advisory role to the Board of Semtech, including moving their listing from the AMEX to the Nasdaq, achieving analyst coverage, and acquiring multiple companies, during which time Semtech’s market capitalization increased ten-fold; the sale of Power-One in a management-led leveraged buyout to Stephens Company for $60 million, which subsequently brought the company public to a peak market capitalization over $1 billion; and the sale of Red River Restaurants to Famous Dave’s of America for stock and cash, with the stock component tripling in value.
Barman Capital continues on today; please visit www.barmancapital.com for more information.
Chief Executive Officer, and Shareholder, of Lucky Spin Laundries, LLC
Lucky Spin Laundries, LLC aquired, operated and re-sold Spin Cycle, the nation’s largest branded laundry chain, with over 1,000 employees and 172 stores in 15 states, starting at over $60 million in annual revenue. In 2003, Jeffrey served as the exclusive investment banker in the acquisition and funding of Lucky Spin. He led extended negotiations with the seller, Credit Suisse First Boston; the due diligence, modeling and marketing of the transaction; and the complex negotiations to complete the purchase, debt financing, equity financing, landlord assignments and accompanying documentation. Jeffrey personally raised the debt financing of over $40 million.
Shortly after the transaction closed, Jeffrey became the CEO of Lucky Spin. Under his leadership, and in less than two years from start to finish, Lucky Spin completed the individual sale of each laundry, went from 1,000 to zero employees, repaid its debt, provided its Limited Partners cash-on-cash returns on their equity investment in excess of 70% and provided the General Partner significantly greater returns.
President of PWS, Inc.
PWS, Inc. is one of the nation’s largest laundry companies, selling equipment, developing, building and selling new stores, brokering existing stores, and providing parts, service and financing to thousands of customers in seven states with over $50 million in annual revenue. From 2005 to 2007, Jeffrey served as Co-President and as a member of the Board of Directors of PWS, a forty-year second-generation family business. Under his leadership, PWS was America’s largest developer of new stores, distributor of replacement equipment, and broker of self-service laundries. Jeffrey was recruited by the dual-family owners to join the business as a change agent in a compressed time period.
During this time, under Jeffrey’s leadership, the company hired key new executives, created and implemented new systems, processes and best practices in the construction, marketing, leasing, customer relations, information technology, service and brokerage departments; recruited new managers in critical positions; signed more leases and opened more new stores than had been built since the company’s construction heyday decades ago; created from scratch and commenced the build-out of two new store brands; extended its geographic footprint from two to seven states; opened three new full-service offices and additional sales-only offices; expanded its distribution lines for the first time in the company’s history from Speed Queen and Huebsch, to also include (alphabetically) Dexter, Forenta, UniMac and Wascomat, while maintaining the company’s long-held position as the nation’s largest distributor of Speed Queen equipment for vended laundries; and, most critically, achieved record revenues and profits.
Personal
Started career as a Wall Street investment banker with Salomon Brothers Inc. and Peter J. Solomon Company Ltd. in New York City. Clients at the former were international companies, such as Ansett Australia and GTE, and at the latter primarily Fortune 500 retail companies, such as Phillips-Van Heusen, Liz Claiborne, Office Depot, Montgomery Ward and R.H. Macy.
Graduate of Wesleyan University of Connecticut, with a B.A. degree in Economics. Earned one-year General Studies degree in International Economics from the London School of Economics in England.
Jeffrey Barman currently works and resides in Southern California with wife and son.