About Michael Terry

Value Strategies, LLC, performs a broad array of business consulting services, all focused on the concept of maximizing shareholder value through excellence in:

  • Growth strategies
  • Organizational management
  • Executive leadership
  • Business operations
  • Finance Strategy

Terry graduated from Wesleyan University (Far Eastern History ) and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School. After Wharton, Terry spent five years in investment banking and corporate finance and related activities such as IPOs, corporate appraisals and valuations, raising private debt and equity.

Later, Terry specialized in asset-based finance, particularly “big ticket” equipment and real estate financings. Terry led teams that closed the first dual-currency, cross-boarder lease, a Boeing 747, with Japan Airlines. He also closed large transactions with Delta Airlines (sale-leaseback of $200 million of commercial aircraft), GTE (the first long-term, fixed rate tax lease on satellite transponders), and Learjet (a wrap-around $150 million lease of a fleet of Lear Jets for the U.S. Air Force). He also created Citicorp’s unique “TEFRA 210” leasing program, the first institutional packaged financing for over-the-road tractors and trailers. In a unique partnership between Citicorp and a major finance company, Terry structured an entity in which the partners shared their returns by receiving different allocations of cash and tax benefits. The entity’s first transaction was the lease–sublease of five Boeing 757s, valued at close to $1 billion. His team also arranged the off-balance sheet, triple net sale-leaseback of corporate real estate properties.

During his tenure in the leasing and structured finance business, Terry personally arranged or directly managed the placement and syndication of over $3.5 billion of equipment and real estate financing.

As President and CEO of The Troxel Company, Terry performed a turnaround on Troxel and its 400,000 square foot manufacturing facility. After two years as President, Mr. Terry was elected Chief Executive Officer. Troxel was engaged in diversified manufacturing of juvenile products, plastics, metal fabricating, and various other consumer products:

  • Design, manufacture and sale of cycling products and accessories.
  • Steel tubular, powder-painted outdoor furniture.
  • Contract plastic injection molding, operating presses from 75 to 1500 tons.
  • Juvenile Products, acting as contract manufacturer/ assembler of a wide line of products for Fisher-Price Company. During Terry’s tenure, Troxel was Fisher-Price’s largest vendor, manufacturing and assembling over $500 million of products.
  • The rolling, forming, cutting, fabricating and coating of mechanical grade steel tubing producing over 150 million feet of tubing annually, for the auto, HVAC, outdoor, furniture, and fitness industries. Assets include forming mills, re-cutting machines, presses, and a powder paint line.

Upon Terry’s arrival at Troxel, the company employed 750, had annual revenues of about $25 million, was losing money, and had had its bank lines of credit pulled. Four years later, Troxel had sold or shut-down three businesses or product lines, was debt-free, profitable, doing approximately $30 million in sales with 400 employees. At its peak, Troxel enjoyed revenues of about $100 million.

After Troxel, Terry joined the Promus Companies as Vice President – Corporate Development. After the spin-off of Promus’ hotel business, Terry remained with the surviving entity, Harrah’s Entertainment, as Vice President of Development, and later Vice President of Design and Construction. In this position, Terry directed new construction, repair, renovation, and expansion.

From 2001 to 2004, Terry served as President of the non-profit business incubator and entrepreneurship center, EmergeMemphis where he consulted with and mentored numerous start-up initiatives and entrepreneurs.

Terry has served as President of Partners-for-Kids, a group dedicated to re-directing “pre-criminal” adolescents and early teens whom analysis showed could be helped by professionally designed intervention programs. In Greenwich, Connecticut, he served on the Inland Wetlands Commission. In Memphis, Terry has served on the Board of Directors of First American Bank; and is past Chairman of the Mid-South Head Injury Association. For several years, Terry served on board of trustees of the Brooks Museum of Art, with membership on the Executive Committee, and Chairman of the Nominating Committee and the Committee on Leadership Excellence. He also served as Chairman of Circle of Hope, the most successful fund-raising effort of the Metropolitan InterFaith Association (MIFA), the Memphis area’s largest independent charity organization; and annual Chairman of the Facing History and Ourselves, a nationally renowned non profit program focused on education, tolerance and understanding.

Mr. Terry is a former member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and is a current member of the World President’s Organization (WPO).

As a noted author, Mr. Terry’s versatility affords him the ability to write in genres from mystery, to humor, to poetry. His first novel, So Shine Before Men, was published in 2001. View Mr. Terry’s publications at his web site www.michaelterrybooks.com


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