IGP: Independent Thinking
An interview with Jack Hesseby Jennifer Duffield White
GrowerTalks 34, December 2000GrowerTalks sat down with John (Jack) Hesse, CEO and president of International Garden Products at his office in Boston to talk about consolidation in the industry and the future of IGP. It's also a sneak preview of Jack's keynote address at GrowerExpo 2001 in January.
Things have been busy at International Garden Products (IGP) - so busy they haven't had time to hang all the pictures in their office. Since the founding of IGP in 1997, they've purchased nine companies - Iseli Nursery, Skagit Gardens, Weeks Roses, Langeveld International, Vandenberg Bulb, Briggs Nursery, Little Valley Nursery, Thompson & Morgan and Ridge Manor Nursery - and talks are in the works for more.
What's behind IGP? Besides two venture capitalist companies, there's Jack Hesse, a man who started looking at consolidation within horticulture as early as 1970. "From a personal stand-point, my background has really been a blend of operating and acquiring companies in the garden products field, finance and cquisitions, and a lot of accounting," he says. After graduating from business school with an MBA, he worked in investment banking and then entered the buyout business, where he put together the purchase of mail-order company Gumey Seed, on behalf of a group that was backing him. The company became American Garden Products, and Jack found himself working full-time for them from 1971 to 1980, until they sold it to Amfac. After doing a venture-capital partnership. Jack came back in 1997 because, he says, he wanted to build one more company in this industry.
"We can supply a retail garden center with multiple product lines at higher frequency and do it all season long" With a unique philosophy, IGP's first mission isn't focused on mediocre businesses that might sell cheap nor large, established growers that service the chain stores. IGP is focused on garden centers that want to be serviced efficiently through a broad product line. They don't want 20 salespeople visiting and 60 bills from 60 different companies. So IGP's focus is on building an integrated system of companies that produce high-end products. They want operations with critical mass that service independent garden centers with a differentiated product line. And being headquartered in Boston, they look for companies with key managers who'll stay on and continue to work with the company after the acquisition
GT: Unlike other consolidators in the horticulture industry, IGP is primarily focused on independent garden centers. Why concentrate on that market segment rather than high-vlume multiple chain stores?
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