A big ‘what now’ moment
Justin Mortara and his dad sold their company for $330 million. What now?
Justin Mortara says he is having a “what now? moment” in his life. Make that a $330 million “moment.”
Mortara and his father, David, sold their Milwaukee company, Mortara Instrument Inc., for $330 million in cash to Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. last year.
Mortara Instrument invents and manufactures medical devices for diagnostic cardiology and patient monitoring.
The company completed a 64,000-square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility at 8585 W. Bradley Road last year. The building is near the firm’s 63,000-square-foot headquarters at 7865 N. 86th St. in the Bradley Woods Business Park.
Mortara Instrument’s products are sold to hospitals, cardiologists, primary care physicians and ambulance companies. The company also has a profitable niche in clinical research, where its products are used to study the cardiac safety of new drugs.
Justin Mortara spent most of the past year as an
employee of Hill-Rom, helping to ensure a smooth transition of ownership for the company founded by his father in 1982.
However, Mortara, 48, recently decided to walk away and start the next chapter of his life and his career.
“After you spend 20 years in a business, and now you’re in this moment. ... It is a ‘what now? moment’ when I go to direct my passion and energies,” Mortara said. “Retirement is not an option.”
Mortara admittedly is not sure about the specifics of his new adventure. However, he’s fairly certain it will be diverse and layered, involving gambits with medical equipment advancements, technology, the arts, small businesses and the nonprofit sector.
“My wife (Susanna) and I are certainly philanthropically inclined, in terms of what Milwaukee and Wisconsin have given us,” Mortara said. “We intend to invest in other health care companies for profit. We intend to use our capital to invest in them to grow.”
By sharing that motivation with a newspaper columnist, Mortara realizes he’s putting a huge target on his forehead to be approached by every charity and technology-based startup in town.
“So be it,” he said with a shrug over lunch at a downtown Milwaukee restaurant recently.
“I’m looking for small companies that are looking for some growth capital, combined with some advice and experience I can provide,” Mortara said.
‘The culture comes with the deal’
Released from the day-to-day grind of leading his family-owned company, Mortara knows he will have the luxuries of being patient and selective about the ventures that will receive his investments.
During our conversation, I relayed to him the advice that George Dalton, the late co-founder of Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc. and other companies, shared with me years ago. When Dalton was considering acquiring another company, he liked to “walk the shop floor” with the CEO of that firm.
Dalton said he paid close attention to the eyes and the behavior of the rankand-file employees as they encountered the CEO. Did they even know who the CEO was? Were they afraid to make eye contact? Were they afraid to provide input? Did they seem vested in the company’s outcomes?
If the answers to any of those questions was “no,” Dalton walked away from the deal.
Mortara said he would take that advice to heart.
“He (Dalton) was spot-on right about all of that,” Mortara said. “That culture comes with the deal. You definitely can see that when you walk the floor.”
Mortara is aware of his good fortune. And he seems to sincerely want to pay it forward.
“I want to help people grow,” he said. “I want to just get in there and do it again. Innovation — it’s embedded in me. Investment in innovations is tremendously exciting.”
Steve Jagler is the business editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. C-Level stands for high-ranking executives, typically those with “chief” in their titles. Send C-Level column ideas to him at steve.jagler@journalsentinel.com.