Hilco Global, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing financial services companies, offers valuation, monetization, advisory, and capital solutions to its clients. With extensive industry knowledge, the firm helps companies maximize asset value and return. While the company is now making headlines for considerable donations to children's summer camps, major business acquisitions, and expanding its practice, it wasn’t always the international powerhouse it is today. It all had to start somewhere.

1987-1999: Start-Up Years

Chicago-born Jeff Hecktman founded the then-named The Hilco Trading Company (HTC) in 1987 after advising his family industrial supply business on a restructuring effort. As the years went by, HTC dealt with several retail, industrial, and wholesale disposition and liquidation deals, expanding its appraisal and valuation practice. Garnering a reputation for its asset value understanding, the company simultaneously partnered with consultants, advisors, and external liquidation firms to bring added value for its clients. Throughout the 1990s, The Hilco Trading Company (HTC) demonstrated remarkable proficiency in overseeing a multitude of industrial, retail, and wholesale liquidation and disposition transactions. This expertise contributed significantly to augmenting the company's valuation and appraisal capacities, establishing a reputation for adeptness in evaluating asset worth and optimizing asset value. As HTC extended its operational reach, it forged valuable partnerships with advisors, consultants, and complementary liquidation firms, allowing the company to offer additional services to established clients. Additionally, being a privately held enterprise, HTC was able to direct its capital towards opportunistic ventures. Alongside the main endeavors, The Hilco Trading Company also started to deploy capital into deals on an opportunistic basis.

2000-2014: The Hilco Trading Holding Company

High growth hit the company in the early 2000s. Adding a range of specialized solutions and services (including intangible asset services, industrial auction services, and real estate services), Hilco expanded further into the US, Mexico, Asia, and Europe. In 2012, the firm launched Hilco Redevelopment Partners, a real estate platform providing solutions for acquiring and remediating old industrial facilities and turning them into green, eco-friendly plants. At the same time, HTC established its bespoke operating structure with separate operating companies led by experienced executives with a positive track record behind them. Fostering collaborative and entrepreneurial spirits, the structure proved highly beneficial, providing clients with ever-more comprehensive and customized offerings.

2015-Today: Expand and Rebrand

When 2015 rolled around, the privately held firm rebranded as Hilco Global, reflecting the breadth and depth of its solutions and its long-growing geographic footprint. Currently, the company boasts 20+ business units delivering a far-reaching selection of valuation, monetization, capital, and advisory solutions that helps businesses around the world identify and manage through critical points of inflection. 2019 saw the firm sell 27.27% of the holding company to Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the biggest pension and insurance fund in Canada. The partnership solidifies the continuous efforts to the growth of Hilco Global by offering long-term capital to finalize more transactions as the firm thrives. As a strategic investor, CDPQ’s involvement helps fuel Hilco Global’s expansion into the IP, retail and consumer brands, and special situation real estate.

Continued Growth and Recent News

With growth remaining on the forefront of the company's mind just like it always has, 2023 has already been a busy year for Hilco Global.

Donating to Sunrise Day Camp-Chicago, The New Summer Camp for Children with Cancer Through its philanthropic arm, Hilco Helps, the company announced it donated $50,000 to Sunrise Day Camp-Chicago, a camp that opened in June in Lake Zurich, Illinois, offering full day experiences for children with cancer and their siblings. It's a philanthropic collaboration between the Hecktman Family Foundation and JCC Chicago. The camp is offered to these children for free, and was heavily endorsed by Hilco Global's founder, who pledged the money and has underwritten the first three years of operations. The president and CEO of JCC Chicago, Addie Goodman, expresses notes of thanks to Hilco Global and the Hecktman Family and says they are excited to start Sunrise Day Camp in Chicago.