James W. Westphal is the founder and Managing Director of LBSC. Jim started his professional career as a consultant with Monitor Company in their Cambridge, Singapore, and Tokyo offices from 1985 – 1990.
From 1991 – 2002, Jim worked at Salomon Brothers, UBS, and Deutsche Bank as an M&A specialist and later as an industry group head. At UBS he ran the North American Transportation and Business Services Group and the Global Logistics Sector. At Deutsche Bank he was Managing Director and Group Head of North American Transportation and Logistics. In these roles as Transportation Head, Jim executed tens of billions of dollars of M&A and financing transactions. Representative transactions include the sale of Danzas to Deutsche Post for $1 billion, FirstGroup’s acquisition of Ryder’s bus operations for $920 million, SAir’s acquisition of Dobbs for $780 million, the sale of UPS truck leasing business to Rollins, the sale of Thyssen Haniel Logistics to the Belgian railway, numerous acquisitions for Deutsche Post and DHL, the restructuring of Varig SA, the sale of Christian Salvesen’s North American unit to ProLogis, and the IPOs of UPS and Deutsche Post.
From 2003 – 2005, Jim served as interim Director of M&A and Strategy at Atlantic Aviation. In that role, he was responsible for developing and leading an aggressive acquisition strategy; positioning the company for an IPO or sale, and subsequently negotiating the sale of the Company to Macquarie Bank for $220 million and a record multiple. From 2005 – 2011, Jim was Managing Director and head of the M&A business at MergeGlobal, the predecessor company to LBSC. In this role, he advised Apollo (and its portfolio company CEVA Logistics) on its $2 billion acquisition of Eagle; PWC Kuwait on its $450 million acquisition of GeoLogistics; Toll on its $71 million acquisition of Summit; Apollo on its investment in the distressed debt of Swift Transportation, GTS on its sale to Jacobson; and numerous other M&A and restructuring assignments.
In addition to his work in transportation and logistics, Jim has worked extensively in on M&A initiatives and financings IT support services, call centers, and restaurants. He has been based in New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and London and has worked extensively in Asia, Latin America, and Europe as well as the United States and Canada.
Jim has a BA, Economics, from Amherst College; an MBA from the University of Virginia; and an MA, East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia.
