Nashville Business Journal calls him the "billion-dollar repairman."
Jim Patton is founder and senior managing partner of
KPAC Solutions, a private equity firm that acquires
distressed manufacturers and turns them into profitable
manufacturing powerhouses. Many have been ailing
subsidiaries of Fortune-1000 firms that, in the hands of
Jim and his team, become world leaders in their
industries.
Jim is an experienced negotiator,
senior investor and founder of many acquisitions
involving distressed manufacturers, distributors and
construction companies on a global scale. Negotiations
have involved comprehensive acquisition agreements,
including long-term post-closing production agreements.
Turning around distressed companies is not only
Jim's profession, but it's also a metaphor for his life.
His book, Life in the Turn Lane, tells his
remarkable story and what he has learned from the turns.
Jim started out as a heating and air conditioning
repairman, but was fired less than a year later. Since
vocational training was his only "higher education", he
schooled himself in business by reading The Wall Street
Journal cover to cover for a decade before taking on his
first major acquisition. After losing everything in the
deal, Jim learned from his mistakes, got a second chance
and hit upon a successful venture that eventually
catapulted him into an international career and
financial independence.
Now one of The Wall
Street Journal's star endorsers, Jim shares his wisdom
and experience in settings ranging from civic clubs, to
youth organizations, to churches. He lives in Franklin,
Tennessee, just south of Nashville, with Melissa, his
wife. Jim's son, Spencer, is following his
father's successful business path as a very successful businessman.