NEW YORK CITY — James Rothstein, a veteran wholesale distribution executive, has joined Lee Equity Partners as an operating partner.
In his new role, Rothstein will work with the middle-market private equity firm to source and evaluate investments in the security and fire services segment.
Rothstein is a 30-year executive in the security industry, and most recently led Wesco/Anixter’s $2 billion global security and fire business as senior vice president, global security solutions. Prior to Anixter, he served as executive vice president and principal at Tri-Ed Distribution, which he acquired from Tyco in 2004 with former Honeywell colleagues.
During a 10-year period, Tri-Ed grew six-fold, becoming the largest independent security products distributor in North America through a combination of acquisitions and strong organic growth. Tri-Ed was acquired by Anixter in 2014.
Rothstein began his career with the Pittway Corp. and Honeywell in sales and marketing roles, including vice president of marketing for ADI.
“We are extremely pleased to be partnering with James Rothstein to pursue growth investment opportunities in the commercial security and fire services sector,” states Yoo Jin Kim, a partner at Lee Equity. “He has demonstrated a strong historical track record of growing companies both organically and via acquisition at several platform companies and with several owners.”
Rothstein holds a BS in Economics from Colgate University. He is a Chairman-Elect of the Security Industry Association [SIA] and a member of the board of directors since 2019.
Lee Equity Partners, based here, targets equity investments of $50 million to $100 million in middle-market control buyouts in companies with enterprise values of $100 million to $500 million that are located primarily in the United States. The firm invests in a range of industries where the team has deep relationships developed over decades, including business services, financial services and healthcare services.
