St. John's Capital Group: Michael Marcil

Michael Marcil, St. John’s Capital Group Venture
Partner and the CEO of our portfolio company
Marcil Group, Inc. Interviewed by Associate Press
and the Forum

FARGO, ND. January 10, 2007 — St. John’s Capital
Group, (www.stjohncapital.com), the premier
financier for companies purchasing undervalued
assets, is pleased to report that wide press
coverage received by our Venture Partner, Michael
Marcil has been overwhelming positive. Below is an
article by The Forum's reporter Jonathan Knutson.

http://www.in-forum.com/Business/articles/151116

http://www.iqrealestate.com/ShowNews.
cfm/NEWS/9286

Investing starts at home
N.D. Native firm has about $30 M in real estate
across state
By Jonathan Knutson
The Forum - 12/30/2006

Mike Marcil’s company has quickly become one of
North Dakota’s biggest landlords. His Fargo-based
Marcil Group – which last year moved to North
Dakota from California – owns nearly 1,000 housing
units and has investments of about $30 million
across the state.

Marcil, a Fargo native who calls himself “a serial
entrepreneur,” has invested in cities such as Valley
City, Jamestown, Wahpeton and Grand Forks, as
well as in smaller communities such as Gackle,
Zap, Hazen and Beulah. “Some people think we’re
crazy for investing in communities like those. But we
see opportunities,” he said.

Marcil looks at the state from the perspective of both
an insider and an outsider. He graduated from Fargo
South in 1989 and the University of North Dakota in
1993. After college, he operated art and Internet-
advertising businesses in North Dakota. Neither
worked out. Marcil moved to California in 1997,
“feeling like I’d failed,” he said.

California treated him well.

Living near San Francisco, he became a software
executive. His wife, Trish Bothum, was one, too. As a
sideline, Marcil got involved with real estate investing
in California, making his first investment there in
1999. He and his California investors – many of
whom are investing with him now in North Dakota –
did well in the Golden State, he said.

But the California real estate market peaked, and the
investment group liquidated its investments there.
He saw new opportunities in North Dakota, in part
because rising petroleum prices boded well for the
state’s oil patch. North Dakota also held appeal as a
good place to live and raise children.Marcil and his
wife have two children, 4-year-old Olivia and 3-month-
old Max.

Returning to his home state also held another
attraction. “I felt like I had unfinished business in
North Dakota,” he said. Last year, Marcil served as
an entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of
North Dakota’s Center for Innovation.

Bruce Gjovig, the center’s director, said Marcil is an
excellent entrepreneur. “Mike is very opportunity-
focused. He’s also a doer,” Gjovig said. He praised
Marcil for being a “quick learner/fast study” and
having a “fertile mind.” Bringing back talented North
Dakota natives living out of state can do wonderful
things for the state’s economy, Gjovig said.

The Marcil Group moved in April to 16 Broadway in
downtown Fargo. The company has 73 employees,
15 of them in Fargo. Marcil, the Marcil Group’s chief
executive officer, describes himself as providing the
company’s “direction.” He has surrounded himself
with detail-oriented managers who concentrate on
what he calls “the process.”

Art Rosenberg, who founded Renaissance
Ventures, a regional venture capital fund, is the
company’s president. He oversees development
and equity financing. “Mike always has100 projects
in mind, and sometimes the rest of us (other
managers) have to hold him back,” Rosenberg said.

Bothum is chief financial officer. She’s responsible
for financial and accounting activities. Curt Biller,
who has many years of experience in owning and
operating businesses, as well as in consulting, is
chief operations officer. He oversees property
management, commercial operations and human
resources.

Nick Hacker is business development manager.
He’s also a state senator from Grand Forks and
was first elected in 2004 at age 22.

The Marcil Group has three subsidiaries: Marcil
Management Inc., Marcil Commercial Services Inc.
and Marcil Development Inc. Through them, the
company owns, develops and manages real estate
and related businesses.

The Marcil Group emulates, in part, Fargo-based
Goldmark Property Management, Marcil said. “They’
ve been successful in what they do. They’re a model
for us,” he said. Goldmark manages more than
9,000 apartments and more than 1 million square
feet of commercial space in the Midwest.
Group’s efforts to bolster housing and local
economies.

Mike Marcil is pictured in his Fargo, N.D., office
Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006. His company has quickly
become one of North Dakota's biggest landlords,
and now hopes to expand into neighboring states.
(AP Photo/The Forum, David Samson)

********************************
Cont'd from Previous Column

“It’s good to have professionals working in the field,”
Rick Berg, a Goldmark executive and Fargo state
legislator, said of the Marcil Group. Berg, speaking
as a state legislator, said he welcomes Marcil. The
Marcil Group doesn’t have any investments in Fargo,
in part because it doesn’t want to compete directly
with big, established companies such as Goldmark,
Marcil said.

One of the Marcil Group’s main focuses is buying
and fixing up old apartments. “Providing modern
living spaces is an important part of economic
development,” he said. Towns can have trouble
attracting employees – and consequently
businesses – without modern apartments, he said.

In Valley City, the Marcil Group recently built a 36-plex
apartment building, one of the city’s first new
moderate-income housing projects in two decades.
The 36-plex fills a need for new, affordable housing,
said Bobby Koepplin, president of the Valley City-
Barnes County Development Corp.

The Marcil Group also renovated the dilapidated
Sheyenne apartment building in Valley City. The
building – which Marcil said once served as a
teachers’ dormitory – now offers modern amenities
along with features such as hardwood floors and
stained glass windows. If the Marcil Group hadn’t
gotten involved, it was only a matter of time before
the building would have been destroyed, Koepplin
said. The building’s renovation will encourage
owners of other Valley City apartment buildings to
renovate their units, he said.

In Jamestown, the company bought several
businesses along the city’s First Avenue Northwest.
“We’re excited about these investments in
Jamestown,” said JoDee Rasmusson, executive
director of the Jamestown Area Chamber of
Commerce. Lil’s, a Jamestown pizza restaurant and
one of the businesses bought by the Marcil Group,
does catering for the chamber, she said.

In Grand Forks, the Marcil Group owns the building in
which Marcil lived while attending UND.

The company hopes to expand into Minnesota and
South Dakota. On the wall of Marcil’s offices are
maps of the two states marking cities in which he’s
interested. The Marcil Group also has investments in
Houston and Louisiana.

Marcil talks of establishing southern and northern
divisions in the Marcil Group. But for now he’s most
interested in North Dakota.

“Our investments here can really make a difference,”
he said.