The Santa Ana company’s gotten much larger since that book came out; last week the firm completed its $5.2 billion buy of London-based rival G4S PLC, making it the world’s largest security firm.
Allied Universal says it is now the third largest employer in North America and the seventh largest employer in the world. Its annual revenue is expected to top $18 billion following the acquisition.
Is a company with some 800,000 employees now, as the saying goes, too big to fail? PE giant Warburg Pincus, a major backer of Allied (their first deal came together at a meeting at Pelican Hill Resort, according to Jones’ book), would know. Its president is Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary during President Obama’s tenure. He helped banks navigate the global financial crisis relatively unscathed.
(Actor Billy Crudup portrayed Geithner in the 2011 HBO film Too Big to Fail; former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, now a senior advisor to Newport Beach’s investment giant Pimco, was played by Paul Giamatti.)
Last week’s deal completion “is truly a very significant moment in Allied Universal’s history,” Jones said. “Our vision is not only to be the best security company but to be the best corporate services partner in a world of evolving risk.”
Said Jones in his 2018 book: “Some people wait for opportunities. Smart people make them.”
Brett White, executive chairman and CEO of commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, has served on Allied Universal’s board, one of several area companies White’s been associated with over the years—the former CEO of CBRE was also once a board member of clothing company Mossimo, at one time based in Irvine.
Other local CRE news: Kurt Strasmann, who had led the OC operations of CBRE, long the area’s top brokerage, has joined the executive team of Greenlaw Partners, the Business Journal has learned.
Last week also saw the passing of Bill Lee, the founder of brokerage Lee & Associates. He started his business in 1979 in what was then El Toro. He was 78 years old.
For more CRE news, see this week’s Commercial Leasing Guide special report.
WeWork is planning to go public, again.
The shared space operator, now with seven locations in OC after slimming down its area portfolio the past year, aims to complete a reverse merger with a SPAC backed by Bow Capital Management, whose founder is Vivek Ranadivé, one of the owners of the Sacramento Kings.
The deal values WeWork at $9 billion including debt, according to news reports. That’s a fraction of its value as of late 2019, before a failed IPO.
Not all Kings owners are as big WeWork fans as Ranadivé. Around the time that Newport Beach-based RevOZ Capital—backed in part by the Bhathal family, also part-owners of the NBA team—bought an office building in downtown Sacramento late last year, WeWork was jettisoned as the building’s main tenant.
