CASE STUDY

Business:

• Leading international provider of specialty freight forwarding and logistics services for highly complex and time-sensitive projects
• Core focus on providing international freight forwarding services to the global music touring industry
• Also serves adjacent high-touch markets: fine art, specialty automotive, live events, and temporary power

Calera-Supported Initiatives:

• New Markets: Calera identified meaningful growth opportunities through extension of Rock-It Cargo’s business model into adjacent markets. Within its core freight forwarding platform, Rock-It Cargo expanded the business by entering other high-touch, highly consequential markets such as fine art, specialty automotive, and temporary power.
• Geographic Expansion: Calera oversaw the opening of new offices and joint ventures in geographies where the company was directing significant freight volume, allowing Rock-It to drive further growth across each of its segments.
• Acquisitions: With Calera's support, Rock-it completed targeted acquisitions that furthered its expansion into new markets and geographies. Calera also partnered with the Rock-It team in the acquisition of Tait, another management-owned and led business. Tait provides set design and construction with a similarly strong market share position to Rock-It in music touring. Through the further add-on of Stage Tech, Tait extended its leading share position to the permanent installation market and provided another vertical for further growth.
• Senior Management: Calera worked with founder and CEO David Bernstein and his team to make several management additions which helped support efforts around system implementations, institution of best practices, and the development of necessary infrastructure to support growth.

Situation:

• Source: Calera identified Rock-It as a result of its focus on the logistics vertical and spent over eighteen months building a relationship with David Bernstein, its founder and CEO, prior to our investment.
• Initial Observations: Within the live music industry Rock-It had an 80%+ share position supported by its brand, relationships and deep domain expertise. The market had strong underlying tailwinds as artists were increasingly reliant on touring activity for income as a result of declining album sales and music piracy. The company's non-asset-based model provided for operating flexibility and significant cash generation.
• Calera as Preferred Partner: As David Bernstein sought to transition Rock-it from its entrepreneurial roots to a more professionally managed enterprise, Calera was the only party with which he formally entered into discussions. Management was confident in the plan that was jointly developed with Calera to grow and build the business, and the team rolled 60% of their value alongside Calera's investment.

Results:

• Calera-supported initiatives resulted in greater end market diversity and defensibility, expanded growth runway, margin improvement and an organization capable of supporting significantly greater scale.
• From 2009 to 2015, Rock-It's EBITDA increased by over 5x.
• Dramatic growth in earnings and franchise value facilitated a management buyout in 2015.