TARTE FAMILY OFFICE
WE ACQUIRE SCALABLE BUSINESSES
ABOUT US
The Tarte Family Office is an investment vehicle looking to acquire small businesses that have the potential to scale. Over the past 25 years, we have acquired or been part of an investment group that has acquired eighteen companies across a multitude of industries, including travel services, B2B marketing, light fabrication, and F&B. We have since exited those businesses for a combined value in excess of $750M and are now seeking new opportunities.
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INVESTMENT CRITERIA
Our focus can best be described as “industry agnostic,” but our ideal acquisition candidates share certain common features - below are some characteristics we value:
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Businesses with EBITDA in the $2M-$5M range
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Businesses with strong, positive, respectful company cultures.
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Businesses which have the ability to scale based on a clearly identified vision.
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Businesses where our strengths in FP&A, sales, marketing, and building unique corporate cultures will add value.
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Businesses that have demonstrated operating leverage.
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Businesses with reasonable capex requirements, but not unusually large ones.
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"Traditional businesses" with little risk of being negatively impacted by AI or other emerging technologies (sexy businesses are not our thing).
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We prefer industries that don't typically attract elite management or financial talent where we can outperform the competitive landscape by making steady, incremental improvements to product and service offerings.
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We like "platform companies" that have the essential elements to support organic growth and bolt-on acquisitions, particularly in industries with smaller players ripe for consolidation.
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We value industries that have identifiable tailwinds consistent with uncontested long-term trends.
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Given our focus on corporate culture, we are generally not believers in businesses built primarily around remote-work. That said, we value businesses where ownership is not chained to a specific geography.
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While we remain flexible to each unique investment situation, below is our preferred acquisition structure:
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We generally acquire 100% of a company but will employ other structures where there is a benefit to having prior ownership / management retain a minority interest.
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We typically do not require debt financing as a contingency to close.
CURRENT AND FORMER INVESTMENTS
Sparks Marketing, LLC: 2001-2023
In 2001, The Tarte Family Office was part of an acquisition group that acquired Sparks Exhibits. Over the next twenty years, we transformed the business from its basic trade show manufacturing roots to a full-scale experiential marketing agency built around a broad service offering including strategy, creative, fabrication, and event execution. During the course of this transformation, we took the company private, paid off $20M in debt, completed two dividend recaps, weathered the financial crisis, weathered Covid, executed four strategic acquisitions, and ultimately sold the business in 2023 for in excess of $600M dollars.
Travel One: 1988-1998
In 1988, Scott Tarte and his brother-in-law acquired a controlling interest in a mom-and-pop retail travel agency, "Cherry Hill Travel," which they later renamed "Travel One." The business had 25 employees and sales (measured by airline ticket value) of less than $20M. When they sold the business in 1998 to American Express, it was the sixth largest travel management company in the United States, with 1400 employees and $900M in sales. The business was built around the same dedication to corporate culture that they later brought to Sparks, as well as the founding principle of keeping "The Customer First." While the majority of Travel One's growth was organic, we executed a dozen small agency acquisitions, primarily to expand our geographic footprint during a time when airline tickets were paper-based and needed to be hand-delivered to corporate clients. Our approach to building Travel One was similar to our approach to building Sparks; we were obsessed with our customers, and our people, and took it as a personal failure if anyone ever wanted to leave. American Express acquired Travel One in 1998 for in excess of $100m.
Schulson Collective: 2009-Present
The Tarte Family Office has an investment stake in Schulson Collective which owns and operates several of the most successful restaurants in Philadelphia including Double Knot, Sampan, and Alpine Rose.
CODE 10 (Our Values)
Sparks' success was, among other things, built on our commitment to a strong corporate culture.
The embodiment of that culture was "Code Ten," which is enumerated below.
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Do The Right Thing
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Question Everything
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Embrace Changes
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Details Matter
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Challenge Provides Opportunity
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Think Unconventionally
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Be a Service Legend
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Kindness and Respect, Always
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Be Proud but Never Satisfied
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Challenge Provides Opportunity
ABOUT SCOTT
For over twenty years, Scott was an owner and the Chief Executive Office of Sparks Marketing, LLC ("Sparks"), one of the leading experiential marketing companies in the world. Scott and his partners bought a controlling interest in the company, then publicly traded, in 2001 and subsequently took it private in 2005. By 2023, the company had grown to $450M in sales, $65M in ebitda, and 750 employees, with facilities throughout the United States, Shanghai and Paris. In late 2023, the company was sold to Freeman Inc., the largest producer of trade shows and proprietary events in the nation.
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From 2010-2018, Scott was a Managing Director of Gabriel Investments, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on investments within the Philadelphia entrepreneurial community. Prior to 2001, he was a principal and the Chief Operating Officer of Travel One, initially a single office New Jersey-based travel agency, which he helped grow into the sixth-largest corporate travel management company in the United States, with revenues of $900 million and a staff of 1,400 employees. In 1999, Scott and his partners sold Travel One to American Express, where he stayed on for two years to lead a $3 billion travel management division within American Express. Scott previously served as a Director of FS Series Trust, a Director of Sidecar, and a Director of First Priority Bank.
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Scott earned his Juris Doctorate from Fordham University School of Law and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
