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For more than 80 years, Siciliano Landscape Co. operated as an independent, family-run business. The company is now part of Mariani landscaping – a much larger business – but the family continues to run it. Karen Siciliano, a former Wall Street banker, is still in charge after selling to Mariani.

“It began with an admired reputation in landscape maintenance, mostly in the Monmouth County area, and has evolved and grown into that of a licenses landscape architect firm that does design, installation and maintenance throughout the State of New Jersey,” Siciliano said. “I entered the company in 2002, as a second career. My first career was on Wall Street. I worked for J.P. Morgan and Chase before they merged in mortgage-backed securities, and on 9/11 I lost a lot of friends that day in the Towers. I found it difficult to return to Wall Street, but easy to return to the place in which I was born and raised, which was Red Bank, New Jersey.”

Siciliano recently sat down with NJBIZ to talk about the sale, how it unfolded and what the integration process was like. What follows is an abridged version of that discussion. The questions and answers are edited for length and clarity. A video of the full interview is available at NJBIZ.com/NJBIZConversations.

NJBIZ: So, you sold the business to Mariani landscaping, if I’m pronouncing that correctly, and they’ve got, I think, almost 20 similar kinds of businesses under their umbrella. First of all, what made you decide to sell? What was the thought process that went into making that decision?

Karen Siciliano: I think that when you sell a company it’s in some ways similar to when you begin a company, you need to know your why. And for me, I’m 63 years old now. I don’t have children that wanted to take on the business for themselves, yet I very much wanted to preserve the legacy, the long legacy that we have. Protect the employees, give them an opportunity to grow, to continue to service our very loyal clientele. And so how do I do that and take some of my chips off the table? Mariani gave me that opportunity for which I’m very grateful.

Q: Now, what was the most difficult part of this process for you? Was it actually making the decision to go ahead and make the sale? Or was there some other task that was particularly difficult?

A: Well, I think you have to trust and like the people with whom you’re going to be working, because during those six months between when you begin negotiating your deal to the time you’ve consummated it, there’s a lot of work involved, particularly for a small business owner that doesn’t have a lot of layers of finance. So, I had spoken with my accountant who I’ve done business with since I entered the green industry. Mike Curry was a partner at Sax and he told me that he had an M&A group, and after meeting with members of his team, I decided, well, they’re the ones for me. They had a clear understanding of where I wanted to go. They knew where I’d been, and they could help me with all those levels of due diligence that I didn’t really have the manpower to do and allow me to continue to work on my on my business while this was happening.

 Q: Given your background. I’m curious about how important advisory services were for you. You did have a background in finance. For someone who doesn’t have that background, who’s been a landscaper, for example, all their lives, how would you go about finding an advisor? You said someone you really get along with – is that the most important thing?

A: Someone that you like, and someone that you trust, and because I had Sax, for me was a great fit because I had worked with them for 20 years. They knew my finances and they had an M&A division that could identify potential buyers in the market.

And when I met with their team. The very first question they asked me is if you could pick three people in the industry that you would like to partner with — and it did become more of a partnership than anything else – who would you pick? And I named Mariani as one of my top three. They were able to get me in front of them and I was fortunate in that regard.

Q: Well, that is interesting. You did know about the buyer over the course of running your business and doing work, just encountering them around?

A: Frank Mariani is a legend in the green industry, and I heard about him. I never had met him before. But after our first meeting I realized why he is so well liked and admired, and he wanted to create a family of family businesses that had admired reputations. And they’ve been around a while. People that liked the script that he was writing, and one of the things that was very important to me was that our family name would be preserved. After all, we’re the brand in the market, and Frank didn’t want to change that. He wanted to capture throughout the country — high end residential landscape companies that could do basically everything in outdoor living and he wanted to preserve our company culture, which was very similar to his own and his own history and business.

So, we now have 19 companies under the helm, with over a half a billion dollars in revenue and a robust pipeline. And I think all of that is important to know. The vision that you’ve been promised when you consummate this deal.

Q: You brought up a couple of things that I wanted to get into a little bit more. First of all, I mentioned at the top and I think you mentioned that you’re still running this business. And it sounds like that was part of the plan from the very beginning.

A: Yes, exactly. You know, one of the things that COVID provided was a glimpse into where you were strong and where you were weak, and one of the things that we understood quite quickly was that we weren’t as protected as we probably should be with it. We didn’t have the buying power that we should have with resources like trucks and equipment.

And so, when we partnered with Mariani and became part of the Premier group, we didn’t just become a bigger company. We became a better company and having me continue to inspire my people and service our clients with these added resources was something that I was very excited about.

Q: And you’re part of a much larger company now, obviously. What’s that like for you? Was there a period of adjustment that you had to make to get used to being in an organization that big?

A: Well, first of all, everything that was promised was delivered, so that was refreshing, and comforting And then, when I met the other founders — we get together by phone quite often and in person pretty regularly — I discovered that I really like the people that were my peers and we immediately worked as a team so that we would have shared resources, shared processes, shared things like marketing and ways to implement. And I very much like that.

Q: Well, that was the next question. What is your role in in in the larger business? It sounds like everybody has this kind of sort of consultative role in the larger organization.

 A: Yes, it’s the ultimate peer group. So, we are located throughout the country. We continue to run the businesses that we founded with the same principles that we value. But we have lots of people with whom we can share ideas. And ask questions of, solve problems with and they’re enjoyable to be around. So, there hasn’t been a whole lot of difficulty for me or my employees to assimilate.

Q: What was the process like of coming up with a valuation for your business? Is there a standard metric in the landscaping business that you were looking at in terms of either what kind of multiple you were looking for, or just what the business would look like and what it was worth?

A: Well, that’s not an easy question to answer, because I don’t think there’s any one formula. And I learned that as the process went on, I had a clearer understanding of EBITDA evaluations in the end, more than I did in the beginning. But I think that what I felt was that I was treated fairly, and that the valuation that was given to me by my accountants – who knew my business best –  was mirrored in the deal that was presented to me by my suitor, and I think that’s what’s important.

Q: OK, so having gone through this, I’m curious number one, is there something that you would change? Is there something that you would have done differently?

A: That’s funny, and nobody’s ever asked me that question but as I’m listening to you, I’m saying to myself no, there is nothing that I would have done differently. In the beginning, I was looking at various business brokers. I’m glad that I went with people that I knew and trusted, and people that knew me and my business. I’m really thrilled and grateful that I teamed up with the Mariani Premier group. It’s an outstanding organization, and I’m happy to be a part of it.

 Q: And that, I guess, answers the the next question, which was – again having done all of that – would you make the same decision again? Would you go through with it and get to this point? Sounds like, yes.

A: Without a doubt, without a doubt.