Four Winds Freight Forwarder Acquired : Portland Investment Management Group Buys San Diego Firm
Coast Financial Group, a Portland-based investment management group, has bought San Diego-based Four Winds Enterprises Inc. for an undisclosed sum, the companies said Thursday.
“We’ve got a done deal,” Four Winds founder and Chairman Richard Arendsee said Thursday. “I’ve sold the company to a group out of Portland . . . that will stabilize the company’s financial base.”
Arendsee and Jerome Rose, president of privately held Coast, refused Thursday to discuss terms of the sale.
During the last 18 months, Arendsee has watched two other deals fall apart after would-be buyers failed to complete letters of agreement to acquire the privately held, San Diego-based freight forwarder.
The most recent deal fell apart in June when NFC International Holdings, a U.S. subsidiary of Britain’s National Freight Consortium, terminated an April agreement to acquire Four Winds. Late in 1986, Meyer Group Inc., a New York-based customs brokerage and freight company walked away from an agreement to buy Four Winds.
Under Arendsee, Four Winds hit a peak in 1985 when it reported $130 million in revenue. In recent years, the privately held company has been hit by losses and a drop in revenue that coincided with increased competition and deregulation in the domestic transport industry.
Four Winds in August closed a money-losing subsidiary for moving domestic households, which generated about 20% of Four Winds’ 1986 revenue. Four Winds still owns a small computer software company and a travel agency in San Diego.
Coast, an “investment management group,” will continue a restructuring program at Four Winds, according to Coast President Jerome Rose. Four Winds, which reported $80 million in 1986 revenue, has been shedding businesses other than its core international freight-forwarding operation.
That restructuring made Four Winds “leaner and especially attractive to our management interests,” according to Rose, who expects to “strengthen Four Winds’ position as the leading international mover of household goods and to expand its involvement in freight forwarding, including foreign military sales and general cargo.”
Arendsee will leave Four Winds, but several top managers will remain with the company that has about 180 employees at its San Diego headquarters. Two Coast principals will assume top management roles, according to Rose. James T. Serreswill serve as president and chief executive and Harry Norstromwill act as executive secretary and treasurer.
Coast provides “a range of consulting services to industrial enterprises, agricultural concerns, service organizations, utilities and government/nonprofit organizations,” according to a spokesman. It is a subsidiary of Coast Consulting Group, a “multinational” consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning and management audits.
