January 31, 2012

John Bates

John is the Founder and a Partner of the Firm.  John has over twenty-five years of investment transaction experience, and has completed in excess of $100 billion of transactions in a wide range of industries.  John serves on the Board of Directors of all investments of Potomac Equity.

Prior to founding Potomac Equity, John was a Partner and Member of the Investment Committee of Arlington Capital Partners, a middle market private equity fund with $1.5 billion under management.  Over John’s twelve year experience at Arlington, he completed 18 transactions, including leading or co-leading new portfolio company transactions in the education, healthcare, information services, software and technology sectors.  John has served on a variety of the Boards of Arlington portfolio companies, including Advanced Health, Ad Venture Interactive (formerly PlattForm Holdings), BrightStar Education Group, Sports Information Group (Daily Racing Form), and Virgo Holdings.

Before joining Arlington in 2000, John was a Vice President in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group at Lehman Brothers.  During John’s seven years at Lehman Brothers, he executed many of the industry’s most notable transactions, including multi-billion dollar transactions for each of the following clients: ADT Limited (hostile defense and merger with Tyco), Ameritech (investment in Tele Danmark), Digital Equipment (merger with Compaq), EXCEL Communications (acquisition of Telco, and subsequent merger with Teleglobe), MediaOne Group (transaction with Microsoft/Telewest), Olivetti (transaction with Mannesmann/CCI), Pennzoil (sale of assets to Chevron), Teleglobe (merger with BCE), and U S WEST (hostile defense and merger with Qwest).  During this time period, John also  executed numerous other merger and acquisition  and corporate finance transactions.

John began his business career as an analyst at Price Waterhouse.

John holds an M.B.A. degree and is a Director’s List recipient from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a graduate of Princeton University. John also previously was All-American Consideration for U.S. Swimming.

In addition to managing Potomac Equity, John is the Treasurer, Chairman of the Finance and Administration Committee, and a Board Member of the non-profit organization Capital Partners For Education (www.cpfe.org). John is also the Chairman of the Finance and Administration Committee and a Board Member of UMUC Ventures (www.umucventures.org), which is an organization established by University of Maryland University College (UMUC) to generate new revenue streams—and new businesses—that will ultimately serve to reduce the cost of a UMUC education. The university, the largest public university in the country, has been a pioneer and innovator in distance education since its founding in 1947.