As the industry wags weigh in on Central’s proposed "self sale" Monroe Carrel stay on the phone with reporters. This from Dow Jones:
Central Parking Corp.’s (CPC) "primary objective" in exploring strategic alternatives is to sell the entire company, Chief Executive Monroe Carell said Tuesday.
The Nashville parking-garage operator, unhappy with its sagging stock price, announced late Monday its board hired Morgan Stanley to help the company evaluate various strategic alternatives that would maximize shareholder value.
The primary objective is the sale of the company, not to split it up, not sell off the real estate assets, but the total company," Carell, who founded Central Parking in 1968, told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
Read it all here.
Although Carrel says that the parking giant will be sold as a single piece, some in the industry say that much of Central’s problems come from the fact that it has a single culture and way of doing business whereas the parking business varies from region to region. For instance, in the west, business is done primarily on a management contract basis, whereas in Manhattan, most deals are leases.
Remember that Central originally grew though acquisition with purchases of Allright/Edison, Square, and Kenny, plus a number of smaller companies. Comparing the way that an Allright and Edison did business was like comparing night and day. However Central, at its peril, attempted to combine the companies it purchased under its single corporate culture.
Perhaps its time to return some of these companies to their original, profitable, ways of doing business.
Or, a new owner might find regional managers who knew the business in the the area. The successful business model of Ampco System comes to mind. When they purchased a parking operation, they went to great lengths to keep the existing management (Center City Parking in Miami and Micky Meyers among others). Central, on the other hand, replaced the senior management at Kenny in New York with its Nashville oriented staff.
Time will tell.
JVH
2 Responses
You are being very kind to Monroe Carrol. I think the industry also knows and understands that Central does not and can not control the operations they have, nor are they willing to own up to past mistakes. Two CFO’s in the past three (3) years, several VP’s have departed as well as a complete management change twice in New York in the past three (3) years. If the everyday stock holder truly knew about the internal problems that plague Central, the stock price would actually be much lower and only Central Management has itself to blame and not Wall Street.
Suprising how much management turnover is the result of theft. Vershky, was an obvious mistake in hine site. However, CPS has a good service in all. They obviously draw talent or they would not continue to take properties from the competion. The problem is short sighted business practices and a gross missuse of human resourse.
Well the other reason that they do as well as they do is that the competion in most markets really is not very good. Most every where I go an park the decks are very dirty.