Building an Alliance
Despite the economy, Cohen said his company has been very active but in a different way.
"Initially (at the start of the recession), we were slower to pull the trigger because we were busy evaluating the chaos that was occurring. We looked at hundreds of potential transactions and didn't do any of them. We are pretty conservative, so we wanted to understand what was happening around us and to the industry in general before we made any big decisions. Over the past year, we've made several acquisitions, and most were distressed in one way or another and we had to be creative in terms of how we structured those transactions so that it was a win-win for both seller and buyer. Today, we are very active and continue to evaluate hundreds of opportunities. We expect to continue to be very active on the acquisition front this year. We still have what we believe is the strongest balance sheet in the industry, and we have ample cash flow to fund our acquisitions."