A Private Consortium of Financial Services, Funds & Facilitators
In 2005, Samson Investment Group formed its Merchant Banking Division, an independent consortium of funds and facilitators managed by F. Michael Brovsky, Samson’s Executive Director. The mission of Merchant Banking is to craft various private placements, alternative investments and employ a more comprehensive philosophy in the acquisition and funding of varied projects. By utilizing creative investment strategies and transaction structures, assets can be prudently leveraged to increase funding capabilities, mitigate risk, and increase the overall rate of return. In addition, we are able to secure significant capital through private investment funds and other financial institutions by crafting blended portfolio, convertible debt, and other investment structures that support the hallmark of our investment strategy: risk management and preservation of capital. Our merchant banking involves many activities to include credit syndication, portfolio and asset management, mergers and acquisitions counseling, and acceptance credit. Our financial services include equity and debt real estate financing, as well as hard money loans for difficult to fund projects. In addition, we now have a Credit Restoration facility that provides credit rehabilitation for our client companies and individuals.
Featured Transactions of each Year:
2005, the Merchant Banking Division facilitated its first major transaction; the $34,000,000 acquisition of the Viansa Winery and Italian Marketplace in Sonoma, California for a corporate client. www.viansa.com
2006, negotiations were successfully concluded with the General Electric Company for the acquisition of their wholly owned subsidiary, the Springer Mining Company, a 2800 acre Tungsten mine and processing facility in Nevada, with an estimated replacement value in excess of $100, 000,000. The mine and its associated mill facilities were conceptually developed in the late seventies and constructed the early eighties. The facility was developed as a source of tungsten for GE’s light bulb business and other uses. It was subsequently sold by Samson to a public company.
2007, Samson entered into an agreement to acquire Warburn Estate Winery, PTY, located near Griffith in New South Wales, in the centre of a large grape-growing and agricultural region, about 600 kilometers from Sydney, Australia. The winery’s outstanding success in the Australian and international wine market has been achieved through producing award winning wines that combine traditional winemaking with innovative production technology. The winery estate consisted of in excess of 1,000 hectares under vine, a crush capacity of 80,000 tons and tank storage for 70 million liters of wine.
2008, Samson entered into an Agreement to acquire Neqtar Wines PTY, a historic winery that has a heritage that dates back to 1881. From humble and early beginnings, this winery evolved into a modern day facility with a forty thousand ton crush capacity and 42,000,000 liters of storage. The award winning wines produced here are exported throughout the United Kingdom, Western Europe, Asia, and Canada. In October of 2008, Samson entered into a Designation, Assignment and Assumption agreement to a public company, assigning all rights acquired under the March agreement in exchange for shares and warrants.
2009, Samson through its Samson Acquisition Corp. entered into definitive agreements to acquire three premier New Zealand wineries located in Blenheim, NZ, Renwick, NZ and Nelson, NZ. These wineries formed the corpus of what was to become the New Zealand Wine Group, which was acquired from Samson later in the year by the Saint James Company.
2010, Samson Investment Group entered into an agreement to provide equity and debt financing for Studio City Louisiana, a one hundred million dollar 135 acre film, television, digital media and recording studio complex on the Mississippi River, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Studio City will be a 28 building Multi acre state of the art facility of 565,000 square feet with 8 stages, including a mega stage of 50,000 square feet; 200,000 square feet of full support facilities for any size production and has garnered major support from the Louisiana State Film Commission, as well as the Hollywood Film Industry.
