Gersh Agency has sold a 45% stake in the company to private equity firm Crestview Partners, the company announced on Monday. For 75 years, the company has been solely owned by the Gersh family.
As part of the deal, Gersh Agency heads Gersh and David Gersh will continue their current leadership positions. Leslie Siebert, Gersh Agency’s longtime managing partner, has been promoted to co-president status with Bob and David Gersh.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Gersh on the agency’s next growth stage,” said Brian Cassidy, Crestview’s co-president and head of media. “We have long admired Gersh’s unwavering commitment to best-in-class client representation and are honored to become Gersh’s first equity partner in the agency’s long and storied history.”
The Gersh brothers said that the investment from Crestview will help the agency expand to new areas to “to support our continued growth as a client-first agency.”
“For over seven decades, we have maintained our independence as an agency because we felt this allowed us to be the firmest advocates for our clients,” Bob Gersh said in a statement. “We knew we found the right partners in Crestview, as it was clear they were completely aligned with our agency ethos, and that they would bring to bear meaningful experience and infrastructure to support our continued growth as a client-first agency.”
“We are very proud of our agency and all we, and our clients, have accomplished together. The opportunity to partner with Crestview will provide us greater flexibility to advance as an institution” said David Gersh. “We have a prestigious, diverse, and tightly held group of agents and clients. We will continue our unique brand of representation and will always hold ourselves to the highest standard of hands-on bespoke representation. We will be aggressive in our growth while never abandoning what makes us special to our clients or our team.”
Gersh Agency was founded in 1949 by Bob and David’s father, Phil Gersh. Bob joined the firm in the late 1970s, with David joining in the late 1980s.
Currently, Gersh Agency has approximately 300 employees, including 125 agents, with offices in Beverly Hills and New York.
