History
Platinum Equity was founded in 1995 by Tom Gores. Platinum Equity’s first acquisition was LSI, a company that generated computer graphics to re-create accidents for courtroom testimony. Tom Gores purchased LSI for $200,000, then focused on servicing existing customers and returning the company to profitability.
Over the next five years, between July 1996 and September 2001, Tom Gores' wholly owned fund (Platinum Equity, LLC) made 32 acquisitions with $226 million, and realized $940 million on those investments. These acquisitions included a call center (Foresight Software), networking gear (Racal Electronics), and voice and data service (Williams Communications). BusinessWeek ranked Platinum Equity number 10 on its 1999 list of the country’s top 20 private IT organizations, based on 1998 revenues. Throughout these early years, Tom Gores broke many private equity rules including specializing in the tech sector and using his own money as equity, and leveraging against it.
During this same time period of acquisition growth, nine of the eleven current partners joined the firm. These partners include Johnny Lopez (1995), David Anglin (1996), Robert Joubran (1996), Phil Norment (1997) and Brian Wall (2000). Additionally, several partners joined through key acquisitions starting in 1999 with Robert Wentworth during the acquisition of Alden Electronics’ operating assets. Then through the acquisition of Pilot Software from Cognizant Corporation in 1997 Rob Archambault, John Diggins and Eva Kalawski joined the firm.
The firm’s first fund, Platinum Equity Capital Partners, was raised in 2004 and had a 62.5% net internal rate of return as of June 30, 2009. This stellar track record played a role in the firms's second fundraise, Platinum Equity Capital Partners II, which closed in September 2008 despite uncertainty in the financial markets. For Platinum Equity Capital Partners II, the firm initially sought a $1.5 billion leveraged buyout fund and nearly doubled it by raising $2.75 billion.
In 2009, during the financial crisis, Platinum Equity acquired 14 companies in the first 11 months of 2009, eight of them full buyouts. This acquisition activity put it among the most active private equity firms through 3Q 2009.
In November 2011, Platinum Equity has bought image sensor business from Kodak which was short on cash. The price was not disclosed, but prediction was about $100–200 million.
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