Tom Petters, Chairman of Petters Group Worldwide, started a trading company in 1988 with little or no capital. Under his years of management and guidance, Petters Group Worldwide has grown from a one-man operation into a company that employs over 3200 people today that span the globe. Petters Group Worldwide is a privately held company with investments in over 60 companies (and serves as an active manager in more than 20 of them) with offices throughout the world. When Tom started the company in 1988, he operated as a one-man brokerage and found sellers of so-called opportunity goods, such as bankrupt retailers or manufacturers with excess inventory—everything from shoes to TVs. He acquired the product and then resold it to retail outlets.
As the size and complexity of the deals increased Tom slowly built up an organization to handle the workload. To establish new distribution channels for the merchandise, Tom started Petters Warehouse Direct retail stores; and RedtagOutlet.com brought his opportunity merchandise model online. In addition, RedtagBiz.com applied the distribution concept to business-to-business transactions.
In 2001, Tom established relationships in China and started Redtag Inc. to extend his company’s reach back up the supply chain to secure a steady stream of merchandise to fill his pipeline.
In 2002, he was a partner in acquiring and restarting Fingerhut, one of the largest catalog and direct mail companies in the country. The following year he acquired uBid.com, the second largest Internet auction site. Today, the Petters Group collection of companies develop and manufacture consumer goods with leading technology. The products represent some of the most recognized brands in the world. For example, their most successful brand is Polaroid®. Before purchasing the company in 2005, Petters Group operated under a license agreement that applied the brand name to TVs, DVDs, LCDs and plasmas. The success of Polaroid’s license agreement spawned similar agreements with Sunbeam®, Emerson® and Oster®. In October 2006 Petters Group and Whitebox Advisors purchased Sun Country Airlines, a low cost, low fare carrier based in St. Paul, MN. Looking toward the future, the company is setting parameters in order to determine what is the best fit for Petters Group. Leveraging strengths from companies within the portfolio and looking for new opportunities is helping to build stronger entities throughout the company.
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