Gary Pryor’s specialization in transactions is rooted in his extensive Wall Street experience, which began with Merrill Lynch International and the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York (JP Morgan). During his tenure at Morgan, he proved his skills in Morgan’s fixed income securities department.

Pryor left Morgan to form his own corporate finance firm in New York assisting middle market food-related companies with mergers and acquisitions, and corporate finance. He was a partner with management in many of the 20 plus projects he directed in Boston, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Arizona, Prague, and Nairobi, Kenya.  Pryor specialized in retail and institutional food and beverage capitalization and sales/exit facilitation.

Pryor was recruited by Arizona based Circle K Stores Inc. / Tosco to manage a 217 store fresh food program and develop a hybrid grocery/restaurant, prepared foods store named Emily’s Market in Chandler, AZ.  As a result, he is well known throughout the food industry as one of the founders of the “Home Meal Replacement” industry.

Following his tenure with Circle K, Pryor joined Hunter Wise Financial Group, a California based NASD/FINRA investment banking firm, as the partner in charge of mergers and acquisitions, where he specialized in buy-side representations for private equity groups seeking to acquire food-related companies.

Mr. Pryor acquired several food related businesses including two USDA certified frozen food manufacturing companies in Wisconsin (www.festivefoodsllc.com) and Connecticut as well as multiple restaurants throughout the United States including BoomBozz Taphouse, a pizza operator and franchisor based in Louisville, KY (www.boombozz.com).

Mr. Pryor was also the founding partner of notable valley restaurants including Michaels at the Citadel / M Culinary Concepts (www.mculinary.com), Zinc Bistro  (www.zincbistro.com) and Taphouse Kitchen (www.taphousekitchen.com) 

Mr. Pryor specializes in consolidation strategy and facilitation, and works closely with other private equity and mezzanine sources of capital in the food and beverage industry. Mr. Pryor received a BA in Government from the St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY.