Airport Experience® News - ACDBE & Small Business Issue 2024

ACDBE partnerships Popping Up In Airports

BY ANDREW TELLIJOHN

It was a perfect storm. The global pandemic had decimated balance sheets. Every operator in the industry was scrutinizing its books. SSP America had a small footprint of business at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that it decided to exit. And one of its Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE) joint venture partners was ready to venture into something larger on his own. When Greg Plummer, CEO of Enjoy Repeat and managing partner of Concord Collective , heard SSP was getting ready to sell, his first thought was, “Hey, sell to me. Let me figure it out.” It was a simple statement from someone who grew up in the business under another groundbreaking ACDBE operator, Clarence Daniels from CMS Hospitality . But it was much more complex to pull off in practice. When he did, he had found four additional experienced ACDBE partners with significant past successes to create a historic transaction that left him the CEO of the largest 100%-ACDBE owned concessions consortium, certainly at LAX and likely at any airport in the country.

Opposite page: Concord Collective consists of five ACDBE partners who banded together to take on eight locations at LAX. The locations were previously operated by SSP America.

Right: Greg Plummer, managing partner of Concord Collective, runs day-to-day operations for the consortium of ACDBE companies that teamed together at LAX.

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AX NEWS JULY/AUGUST 2024