A portfolio of retail businesses and real estate holdings throughout the upper Midwest
Located in Glenview, IL, Highland Ventures is a portfolio of retail businesses and real estate holdings throughout the upper Midwest and Texas.
The primary holdings include over 750 Family Video (home DVD rental) locations, over 135 Marco’s Pizza locations and ownership of 90% of the commercial real estate used by those businesses. Other businesses include: Digital Doc, Stay Fit 24 and Highland Pure Water & Ice.
Highland Ventures dates back to 1946 when Clarence Hoogland established the Midstates Appliance and Supply Company. For the first 30 years, the company focused on growing it’s appliance distribution business. In 1978 Midstates opened it’s first video rental business and ultimately grew the video rental business and real estate ownership to over 750 locations. In 2012 Highland Ventures partnered with Marco’s Pizza to rapidly expand their franchise base. Over the following 5 years 135 locations have been opened making Highland Ventures the largest franchisee of Marco’s Pizza.
The focus on the rapid growth of the Marco’s business enabled operating inefficiencies to develop. The Maven team worked with the Highland Ventures leadership to identify opportunities to improve profitability. In the first phase of the work, a comprehensive profit diagnostic was conducted across the entire business. Immediate opportunities were identified and communicated to the executive team. In the second phase of the work, the largest and most promising opportunities were analyzed further. A detailed roadmap of go forward actions was developed to provide the executive team with the guidance they would need to realize results.