PawSox Owners and Commerce Board Member Close $900 Million Fund
GoLocalProv Business Team
PawSox Owners and Commerce Board Member Close $900 Million Fund
The firm focuses on "investments in the healthcare, industrial products, and outsourced services sector." According to Nautic, the firmlocated in Providence began formal fund raising in October 2015 and raised its cap to $900 million after receiving strong demand from both new and existing investors.
The two Managing Directors -- Habib Gorgi is a partner in the PawSox ownership that requested $120 plus million in public financing for a stadium in Providence. The other is Bernie Buonanno, III who Raimondo appointed to the Commerce Corporation Board.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBoth Gorgi and Buonanno were ranked in GoLocal's 2015, RI's 50 Wealthiest and Most Influential.
“We are excited to announce our successful closing on Nautic VIII,” said Buonanno. “We believe the success of this fund raise is a strong endorsement of our ability to deliver long-term results for our investors. In Nautic VIII, we intend to continue to emphasize our expertise in our three primary sector verticals: healthcare, industrial products, and outsourced services. We have developed deep experience within these industries over the firm’s three decades of investing, and will seek to leverage the specialized knowledge and relationship networks we have generated in order to continue to drive performance for our investors. We will also remain focused on our strategy of improving the value of our portfolio companies by enhancing the depth of our management teams, initiating targeted operating initiatives, and closing add-on acquisitions that are both strategically and financially accretive.”
Select limited partners in Nautic VIII include AlpInvest Partners, Ardian, the Arizona State Retirement System, Brown University, the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Rhode Island, HarbourVest, clients of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, LGT Capital Partners, Nebrodi Partners, New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, and Pathway Capital Management.
Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Mercury Capital Advisors advised Nautic in connection with the formation of Nautic VIII, said the Nautic release.
PawSox Stadium Aftermath: Winners and Losers
Winner
Coalition Radio -- A small group of libertarian activists relentlessly advocated against any public financing for a private venture. Pat Ford, Dave Fisher and Tony Jones leveraged internet radio and social media to pound the project and the costs.
Loser
Speaker Nicholas Mattiello -- The Speaker was all in for the project. He repeatedly voiced his strong support for the project. Some said it was a project for his legacy and others said he supported the project as a result of influence of the ownership group and their lobbyist Bob Goldberg.
It wasn't long ago that the Speaker said the Providence Stadium would be revenue positive. In a few short weeks, the project somehow went from supposedly financially advantageous to taxpayers to DOA.
Winner
GOP -- The Rhode Island Republicans came out against the project early and kept raising questions about the cost and the approval process. Despite being in the political minority, the Republicans used their thorn-in the-side status to play the spoiler.
Loser
Old School Top Down PR Strategy -- Renderings, fact finding trips for leaders and listening tours were all the strategies embraced by the ownership team and each came back and burned them. The listening tour had higher attendance at many sites by taxpayers who were opposed to the project -- and the fact they had to write their questions down, and be lectured to in response, did not go over well by opponents.
Winner (maybe)
Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien -- It looked like the Mayor was a loser for sure with his city's most valuable asset moving from Pawtucket just 6 miles away to a gleaming new $100 Million project in Providence. With the Providence Stadium dead, Pawtucket has a window to try and create a proposal that improves McCoy, is financially viable and acceptable to the ownership group.
The window is very short, and Grebien will move from the winners' column to the losers' bracket if the PawSox leave RI.
As the Mayor wrote in a GoLocal MINDSETTER™ piece, "We remain hopeful that the new owners will see the value that Pawtucket has given their brand and that the growth we are experiencing will only strengthen it. We hope they will Join the Evolution here in Pawtucket."
Loser
Jorge Elorza -- The Providence Mayor was unable to put together a deal and a location that worked for taxpayers. There was -- and still may be -- an opportunity to bring hundreds of thousands of new visitors into the city annually at the 195 site.
Elorza needs to change the present narrative from crime, a decrepit recreation system, and visits to meet with Guatemalan corrupt leaders to where the city needs to be.
Winner
Taxpayers -- A coalition of taxpayer groups and activists scored their most significant political victory to date. This may spark an empowered effort to take on other issues with enthusiasm.
Loser
Public Financing of Stadiums in the US -- The dramatic defeat of the proposed stadium in Providence may cause other cities, counties and states to take a harder look at the economics of public financing of stadiums.
There is now a blueprint for how taxpayers and progressives can build a coalition to oppose a professional sports team, organized labor and billionaire ownership interests.
The PawSox defeat and the Boston Olympics collapse may speak to a broader grassroots movement opposed to the spending on public funds on private projects.
Winner
Grassroots Activists -- Multiple grassroots efforts sprang up to oppose the stadium move, and perhaps none as vocal - or visible -- as "Organizing for Pawtucket" and David Norton.
Even when a new stadium looked like it was on life support, Norton and supporters utilized both social media and traditional boots-on-the-ground techniques (read: canvassing the Speaker's neighborhood -- in Cranston) to keep the pressure on until the deal was dead.
