Jimmy John Liautaud From Jimmy John’s to Roark Capital
Born in 1964, Jimmy John Liautaud is the founder of Jimmy John’s Stores and its former chairman. His efforts saw his name appear in the Forbes list as one of the wealthiest people in the world in 2018. A status he can’t attribute to his academic performance or family background. Jimmy wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Gina, his mother was a teacher in elementary school. James, his father, had served in the army and left to be an entrepreneur who had been bankrupt twice.
In his high school, Jimmy was the second last in the graduating class, which he terms as an utter failure. He joined Eastern Illinois University but left to pursue business. The imperfections of his early life and academics didn’t dull his business acumen as he proved after starting Jimmy John’s a sandwich chain.
Jimmy John’s Store
Jimmy’s father loaned him $25,000 for business capital. He was to join the army if the business flopped. He wanted to sell hot dogs, but he couldn’t afford the equipment. He opted to start selling sandwiches after turning a former garage into a sub shop. It was in 1983 around Eastern Illinois University that the business began. College students were his target consumers, and he leveraged on it by supplying the sandwiches to their dorms by himself.
After one year in the business, the efforts paid off, and he was able to refund his dad the loan with its interest. The following years were no different, and more stores opened in various states, and revenue kept rising. With headlines such as “NO ZITS” and “PARTY” on printed ads, there was a buzz, and the business thrived. As of 1994, Jimmy’s ten stores had made $1 million in gross profit annually and a revenue of almost $4 million.
Roark Capital
Even with the business booming, Jimmy was now getting overwhelmed, and he needed a solution. The company had grown to more than 2000 stores and being in control of them all was no small feat for him. He admits it was big and getting complex for him to handle. At one point, he had an ad fund of $100million that he needed to execute effectively, and Jimmy wondered how he would do it. He resolved to get help, and that’s how James North became Jimmy John’s Store’s first CEO.
The solution wasn’t enough as another problem came up as Weston Presidio wanted at the time to off-load its stake of the store. Jimmy contemplated on making the chain a public company but dismissed it, as he admits that he couldn’t be in a position to serve Wall Street. He opted to look for another firm that could provide him a partner with experience and also Weston to off-load its stake.
TPG, Roark Capital, and KKR were among the private equity firms that showed interest. Roark Capital Group, founded in 2001 by Neal K. Aronson, is a private equity company with its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, America. Neal Aronson won the bid as Jimmy was looking for a big brother, and since he asked after his family’s welfare, he won Jimmy’s heart.
Jimmy is now the chairman at Roark Capital. He may not be the primary decision-maker, but Jimmy loves the freedom to do other things in his private life. He now has time to himself on his yacht and deer-hunt.