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Newsday, Melville, N.Y., James Bernstein column: Growing LI firm focuses on search engine optimization [Newsday, Melville, N.Y.](Newsday (Melville, NY) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 4--Andrew Hazen decided early on that he did not really want to be a lawyer -- like eight weeks after he started practicing. "I was doing mortgage foreclosures," Hazen, 36, said. "I was throwing people out of their houses. That didn't give me much satisfaction." But while attending Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan in the 1990s, Hazen had learned about the Internet. He had even started a Web site that provided students with reference sources, and made some money. Now, Hazen is making more. Lots more. He is founder and president of Prime Visibility Llc in Melville, a search-engine optimization and Internet marketing firm that is one of Long Island's fastest-growing such companies, helping businesses improve their placement on Google and other search sites. The 10-year-old Prime Visibility is poised for its next growth spurt, Hazen said. The company moved in January 2008 to a 9,000-square-foot office from half that space at a business incubator run by the Long Island Forum for Technology in Bethpage. It now has about 45 employees, up from five a decade ago. Sales are in the $5 million to $10 million range, up from $2 million in 2006. Prime Visibility added three people last month, and plans to hire three more. In 2007, Hazen sold Prime Visibility to Steve Rosenberg, who had been president of Universal Studios' television group. Rosenberg, now Prime Visibility's chief executive, enlisted two equity firms to invest in Prime Visibility, and he said they paid "millions" for the company. Rosenberg said he came out of "traditional media." When he listened to Hazen describe the business over two years ago, he was stunned. "I didn't even know this kind of company existed," Rosenberg said. Only two weeks ago Pall Corp. was getting kudos from Long Island politicians and business leaders, who congratulated the company as it moved from East Hills into spiffy new headquarters in Port Washington. But one Wall Street analyst had another view of the company, seeing it as a potential takeover target. Analysts have speculated for years that the maker of filtration systems could be a takeover target. But Hamzah Mazari, who follows Pall for the investment-banking firm Credit Suisse, said in a recent report this time there is something different. Pall, Mazari noted, did not renew its poison pill in its most recent proxy filing. A poison pill is language that discourages a hostile takeover. In a statement, Pall said only, "The proxy did not mention a shareholder rights plan," a more polite term for a poison pill. Mazari said that is significant. "Pall has always been a takeover candidate from our perspective," Mazari said. "A lot of multi-industrial companies have always wanted Pall. It's a good business. But Pall had always said they were not for sale. Who knows if there's a deal or not? But it's interesting the company no longer has a poison pill." Mazari noted that senior management could get "a pretty hefty payout" in a sale of the company. Chief executive Eric Krasnoff, he said, "could make $15 million on a change of control." The company does not comment on analysts' reports, a spokeswoman said. The Association for a Better Long Island, a developers group, came up with a novel way of demonstrating the problems in its industry: It held a recent meeting in an empty building in Hauppauge. "We were sending a message to the political community," said spokesman Gary Lewi. The Reckson-owned building at 360 Motor Pkwy., Lewi said, "is generating no jobs and no economic development. There's no question word got out" to politicians, Lewi said. The only pol there was Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy. Association executive director Desmond Ryan said Levy was "willing to work with us, and he's concerned about comprehensive economic development. We're facing some difficult economic times. We extended an invite to him, and he came." To see more of Newsday, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsday.com Copyright (c) 2009, Newsday, Melville, N.Y. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |