Who is Leonard M. Levie? What does Leonard M. Levie do?

Leonard M. Levie is the Chairman and Founder of American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC).In 1996, he established this firm to acquire underperforming and non-core manufacturing and distribution companies.

    

What does Leonard M. Levie do?

Apart from being the Chairman of AIAC and its subsidiaries, Leonard M. Levie is Chairman of the AIAC Foundation, Inc.  He has lectured at the Harvard Business School, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the Turnaround Management Association, and the Association for Corporate Growth.

He has been a panelist with Hon. Fabius Laurent, the former Prime Minister of France, on Investing in France, at the Consulate General of France in New York in 2015.

In addition to other roles, he is also an active member of various councils, societies, and clubs, such as the Trilateral Commission, the Bretton Woods Committee, the Council on Foreign Relations Legacy Society, the Yale CEO Summit, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Society of Harvard Law School, the Copper Club, Chatham House, the American Red Cross Legacy Society, and many more.

Which types of underperforming businesses does Leonard M. Levie deal with?

AIAC and its affiliates hold controlling interests in companies which serve the following sectors: packaging materials, pharmaceuticals, power generation, medical devices, mining, automation, food and beverage, aviation &aerospace, defense, truck, rail, marine, pulp and paper, construction, and more.

Mr. Levie founded AIAC with the principle of acquiring underperforming companies and helping them to survive and flourish. Since the inception of AIAC, his firm has purchased and operated manufacturing units of some of the largest corporations in the world, including Boeing, Johnson Controls, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Merck, Pfizer, GSK, and Siemens.

In addition to purchasing manufacturing units of large multinational public companies, his firm also buys the equity and debt of privately held companies. AIAC is a conservatively capitalized group, with permanent equity capital and no net debt.

Leonard Levie Revitalizes Failing Businesses Even in Hopeless Situations

Leonard M. Levie is the founder and chairman of American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC).  An eternal optimist, has always believed that every cloud has a silver lining, provided that you look hard enough for it.  His team at AIAC has rapidly develop and implement the key operational and financial actions to revitalize struggling manufacturing and distribution businesses.

Businesses that are on the verge of falling apart often close down because they don’t have sufficient human and financial capital to develop and execute an effective turnaround plan.  This typically results in the loss of hundreds and, sometimes, thousands of jobs for contractors and skilled and unskilled laborers, which can impact an entire community. 

Over the past quarter century, AIAC has identified, acquired, and turned around a large collection of underperforming manufacturing and acquisition companies located on four continents.

One of the most dramatic examples where Leonard M. Levie and his team at AIAC have saved a declining businesses include the case of Craft Paper Industries Ltd.: 

Tolko Industries, a multi-billion dollar revenue, privately held, timber, paper & pulp mill group based in Canada, announced the closure of its kraft paper manufacturing facility located in The Pas, Manitoba, Canada, located 835 miles northeast of Minneapolis, MN in August 2016.  As a result of the impending closure, 300 woodland contractors and 330 union employees faced immediate unemployment. Despite this crisis, which the national Canadian media declared to be a hopeless situation, Mr. Levie saw an interesting opportunity for the revival and revitalization of the business and purchased the mill just three weeks before the announced shutdown date.

Before the acquisition, the paper mill had negligible paper orders along with a fleeing customer and supplier base. But less than 1 year after its acquisition, the mill, rebranded as Canadian Kraft Paper Industries Ltd., started humming again.  Today, the mill profitably produces and exports worldwide the highest quality grades of kraft paper for a myriad of blue chip corporate clients. AIAC accomplished this by designing and implementing a bold turnaround plan which combined revenue enhancement, cost containment, massive equipment investment.

The dramatic saga of Canadian Kraft Paper Industry is hardly unique for AIAC.  This turnaround story is repeated at dozens of other AIAC companies, including Champlain Cable, Titanium Fabrication, Euro foil, Arn prior Aerospace, Super Alloy Manufacturing, Vermont Aerospace, Be Link, Malaga Aerospace, Bradford Space, Neotiss, D2A, Shiro Group, Avara Pharmaceuticals, Combiwear Parts, Consolidated Industries, Craft Machine Works, Epalia, Forte Micro, IP3 Plastics, Lenape Forged Products, MG, Umbilical International, and Union Metals. Each has a similar story to tell.  Each of these companies was universally regarded by their industry and community as hopelessly insolvent, unprofitable, and unfixable.  Each was turned around by the AIAC turnaround team. AIAC operates like a combination of a close knit family and a vigorous university debating society.  The Socratic method prevails.  Turnaround target companies’core operational and financial issues, and the appropriate turnaround action steps to address them are endlessly discussed internally before an acceptably high probability turnaround strategy is set.  All opinions are welcome and passions run high.  New information on the target company’s products, markets, customers, supplier is instantly considered, and hotly debated.  Turnaround strategies are immediately adjusted, and 180 degree pivots in strategic direction are often the result. The plan is then implemented by selected AIAC turnaround executives, based on their specific track record, geographic location, and language skills. 

No one attempting such corporate high wire acts is perfect, and enduring the unrelenting ire of disappointed stake holders is part of the job description. In such cases, stones are hurled by local press and politicians.  This is particularly true when a turnaround necessarily requires a strategic, surgical divestment or dissolution of a non-viable-subsidiary, in order to save a much larger core, parent business which supports thousands of jobs. Turnaround managers at AIAC know that designing and implementing a revitalization plan that saves the most jobs is as important as transforming losses into profits. 

 AIAC’s turnaround track record is stunning, with an enviable 25 year, global win/loss ratio rumored to be 20 to 1.  This has produced a compounded annual return on invested capital that is unadvertised and closely guarded.  AIAC has never raised capital from limited partners and has no plans to do so.  AIAC now consists of 78 manufacturing and distribution sites in 24 countries on 4 continents.

Leonard M. Levie- Chairman and Founder of American Industrial Acquisition Corporation and the AIAC Foundation Inc.

American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) was established in 1996 by Leonard M. Levie.  The company has reached a quarter century milestone with 78 manufacturing and distribution affiliates in 19 countries, but the passion to do more still exists.

Who is Leonard M. Levie?

Leonard M. Levie is the Chairman of AIAC and each of its subsidiaries or affiliates, which Arnprior Aerospace, Avara Pharmaceutical Services, Be Link, Bradford Space, Champlain Cable, D2A, Euro foil, Forte Micro, GeCoe, Malaga Aerospace Defense Electronics Systems, Titanium Fabrication Corporation. Vermont Aerospace, and Umbillicals International, among others.  

Mr. Levie has been a guest lecturer at the Harvard Business School, the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, the Association for Corporate Growth, and the Turnaround Management Association.

In addition, Leonard M. Levie is the Director of the Forest Products Association of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and a Member of the Alexander Graham Bell Legacy Society of the National Geographic Society.

What Leonard M. Levie and his company do?

Simply said, the AIAC is an Industrial manufacturing-focused group. Leonard M. Levie with his AIAC team acquires manufacturing companies from the largest corporations in the world. The company works on the principle of

“Acquiring under-performing companies and helping those companies to survive and thrive.”

Some of the units that AIAC has purchased and operated are:

•    Ahlstrom
•    Astrellas
•    Boeing
•    Carlyle Group
•    Constellium
•    GlaxoSmithKline
•    Jabil Circuit
•    Johnson Controls
•    Kodak
•    Lockheed Martin
•    Merck
•    Moog
•    Northrop Grumman
•    Novelis
•    Pfizer
•    Raytheon Technologies
•    Rexel Group
•    The Riverside Company
•    Sandvik
•    Siemens
•    SSC
•    Suez Group
•    Tolko
•    Visteon

Other than these units of multinational public companies, AIAC purchases the equity and debt of privately held companies.

Under the guidance of Leonard M. Levie, the portfolio of AIAC consists of 78 manufacturing and distribution sites with over 8,500 employees in 24 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company owns over 6.5 million square feet of industrial real and holds the exclusive, perpetual license to responsibly manage 22 million acres of prime Canadian Timberland, a landmass equivalent to the size of Hungary. The company’s annual revenue exceeds $1.6 billion.

Why is it beneficial to transact with AIAC?

•    Completes transactions in as short as 15 to 30 days, including due diligence and documentation
•    Utilizes an internal team to originate, analyze and execute acquisition transactions
•    Executes all standard non-disclosure agreements and conducts its due diligence quietly, without disruption to target company’s operations.
•    Offers a high probability of closing to sellers
•    Accepts most asset sale and share sale documents, with no or few changes
•    Facilitates the full transfer of all liabilities, contingent and non-contingent
•    Doesn’t require financing from external parties
•    Offers global synergies to acquired companies in areas likes sales, marketing, raw materials and equipment procurement, industrial engineering, accounting, legal, IT, HR, and insurance.

American Industrial Acquisition Corporation, under the leadership of Leonard M. Levie, helps non-core manufacturing and distribution business owners to survive and thrive in the industry.