Whitestone's client services and advisory team is a blue-chip group of highly seasoned professionals. Whitestone's executives come from the highest levels of major companies in the markets served and are proven industry veterans with strong operations as well as transaction experience. With this background, Whitestone delivers solid service and advice to meet your needs.
Mr. Rosen is a highly experienced mergers and acquisitions professional with a particularly strong background in handling transactions in the publishing, information, Internet and training fields. He carefully guides clients through the intricate process of successfully selling and buying businesses and product lines. Mr. Rosen is highly regarded for his professionalism and thoroughness and brings a seasoned and thorough approach to work for clients to insure they achieve their goals in a timely manner that exceeds their expectations.
Mr. Rosen's experience includes over 20 years of experience in publishing and information businesses and more than 15 years of experience in handling mergers and acquisitions.
Before founding Whitestone in 1994, Mr. Rosen served as director of acquisitions for a total of eight years at McGraw-Hill (1986-1990) and Simon & Schuster (1990-1994), two of the most prominent companies in the publishing and information fields.
Mr. Fitzelle is a mergers and acquisitions professional specializing in the media business. He is experienced in B-to-B, professional, educational, and consumer markets. His background includes eight years as a partner at AdMedia Partners, Inc., an investment bank serving the publishing industry and 13 years of executive experience at The McGraw-Hill Companies, where he was in charge of M&A activities for the magazine and book companies. He also served for ten years as the U.S. representative of Severn House Books, a London based mid-list fiction publisher.
He has served many private and family-owned publishing businesses, consulting with them on how to maintain family ownership and representing them when the decision has been made to sell. At AdMedia he closed numerous transactions including the sales of Geyer McAllister to Reed Business Media, Harris Infosource to Dunn & Bradstreet, and The Electric Show and Electric Show West to Primedia.
During his tenure in McGraw-Hill's Professional Publishing Group, he was responsible for negotiating and closing a series of acquisitions and divestitures critical to transforming an underperforming business into a high performance organization. The group's performance improved from sales of $200 million with ROS of 4% to sales of $320 million with ROS of 10% five years later. He was also responsible for negotiating the agreements that created McGraw-Hill Cheneliere, the first instance in which McGraw-Hill licensed its brand name to another publisher.
In addition to his M&A and consulting work, he is often retained as an expert witness in litigation and to provide valuations of companies. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and has an MBA degree from Columbia University.
Mr. Hoxter has been active in mergers and acquisitions since leaving Chilton Company, a Pennsylvania-based $250 million publishing subsidiary of Walt Disney, in 1997. He was involved in the sale of the Chilton Company to Reed Elsevier for over $500 million in that year. Over 14 years at Chilton, Mr. Hoxter held a variety of management positions, including Senior Vice President with operational responsibility for several units including consumer and professional automotive divisions, both print and electronic database, and trade book publishing. He was earlier General Manager of Chilton Research Services, a market research unit of the company. He joined the Chilton Company as Chief Financial Officer in 1984 from Revlon where he was a divisional CFO/Controller. Mr. Hoxter, earlier in his career, held financial positions with the Revlon Health Care Group, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and Arthur Andersen/Accenture.
He founded business intermediary Mill Creek Partners in 1998 and completed over one hundred transactions over a ten year period. Mr. Hoxter holds an MBA from Columbia University and is a New York State CPA.
Ms. Isserman has 15 years of experience in providing research and investment banking services for media, education, information service and technology companies. Her career on Wall Street encompassed both buy-side and sell-side equity research, first at Gabelli & Company and later at PaineWebber and CIBC Oppenheimer. At Whitestone Communications, Ms. Isserman concentrates on M&A and financial analysis for publishing and training enterprises. She holds an M.B.A. from New York University's Stern School of Business.
Mr. Serwatka has extensive experience in the management and acquisition of publishing and information businesses. At the McGraw-Hill Companies, he served in a variety of executive management positions including: Executive Vice President, Member of the Executive Committee, Chief Financial Officer, President of McGraw-Hill Information Services Company where directly managed over 60 publishing and information businesses producing $1.5 billion in revenue, Chairman of the Macmillan-McGraw-Hill School Publishing Company, the nation's largest elementary-high school publisher and he was a member of the Nikkei-McGraw-Hill board of directors where he negotiated the sale of McGraw-Hill's 49% interest in the joint venture, resulting in the largest deal to date in the company's then 100-year history.
Prior to McGraw-Hill, Mr. Serwatka held financial and management positions at United States Gypsum Company, Westvaco Inc. and Random House. He has served as a Senior Advisor to Whitestone Communications since its formation in 1994.
Richard Casabonne has spent his entire career in education and trade publishing and is now CEO of Casabonne Associates Inc. Previously, he was Principal and Senior Consultant at MarketingWorks, a full service consulting firm, where he headed up research activities and strategic planning for many different educational publishing houses, distributors, and non-profits providing services to education.
Prior to his appointment at MarketingWorks, Casabonne was President, Educational and Training Group, LeapFrog Enterprises where his responsibilities included leveraging the highly acclaimed LeapFrog platforms into education.
Before LeapFrog, he served as Senior Vice President of Planning and Business Development for Harcourt, Inc, an educational publishing company comprised of over 20 divisions that covered a range of educational needs. While at Harcourt, he was active in acquiring the NEC Companies, which included Steck Vaughn, a leading publisher of supplementary education materials for kindergarten through adult education, where he served as President and CEO.
Earlier, Casabonne held senior management positions at Grolier, Inc., McGraw-Hill Educational Resources, Random House School Division, and consulted with myriad educational and trade publishers. He also consulted for Apple Computer's education initiatives for eight years.
He serves on numerous boards for both companies and institutions and is currently president of the Association of Educational Publishers. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and a master of education degree in instructional technology from Boston University.
Mr. Carton is a senior executive with more than 30 years’ experience in corporate alliances, M&A, cross-border transactions, equity and debt placements, alternative channels of financing, buyouts, recapitalizations, and turnaround strategies. He has served as an executive of a publicly-traded entertainment company and as a trusted investment banking advisor to owners and managers of middle-market businesses.
He has extensive experience in media and communications. Publishing clients have included Venture Economics (premiere trade publication sold to SDC), Surgical Care Publications (repurposing assets to form the tremendously successful Medscape website), Western Schools (continuing education acquisitions), Act III Publishing and Baby Talk (consumer magazines) among many others. Other media clients include filmed entertainment (Twentieth Century Fox, Cinecom, Pandora, Creativite et Developpement), television and cable (Discovery Channel, Nostalgia Network). Communications clients have ranged from traditional broadcasters (Combined Broadcasting and Scandinavian Broadcasting System), to out-of-home advertising (Patrick Media billboards), to new delivery technologies (RuralVision, Americast, Cincinnati Bell). Mr. Carton also provides expert opinions and litigation support services to law firms, corporate boards and regulatory agencies (such as the Federal Communications Commission).
Mr. Carton’s affiliations include CoView Capital (Managing Director) and Carton Group LLC (Founder and President) where he advises corporations, executives and entrepreneurs on strategic transactions and complex corporate finance issues. Earlier, he was Managing Director of Burnham Securities Inc. (5 years), President of Patricof Securities Corp. and Managing Director of Patricof & Co. Capital Corp. (16 years; later a division of The Bank of New York) and Vice President of J. Henry Schroder Corp (4 years). Mr. Carton has been engaged on more than 100 transactions with an aggregate deal value exceeding $5 billion. He began his career in operating management roles at Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. where he was responsible for treasury management, planning and budgeting, creation of alternative financing channels, and acquisitions/divestitures.
He has been selected for numerous board seats with corporations and not-for-profit organizations and published and taught in the areas of mergers & acquisitions, buyouts, strategic alliances and cross-border transactions. Mr. Carton holds an MBA from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. He has been chairman of the Board of Trustees of Hoff Barthelson Music School and Treasurer of Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester.
