Family Tree

Jonathan Saperstein began his efforts to professionalise and dominate the nursery industry with a hostile takeover of a grower—from his dad

- Amy Feldman

In the summer of 2014, Jonathan Saperstein, then a 27-year-old executive at and minority shareholder in Tree Town USA, a decorative tree grower, was worried. “We were up against the clock because of the cash position,” he says. The company’s founder—his father, David Saperstein, who had vaulted onto The Forbes 400 after he sold his previous company, Metro Networks, for $900 million—seemed disengaged. David, who was often travelling overseas, wasn’t investing in the company, which had around $30 million in revenue; instead he was trying to grow it fast and cheap and then take it public. When Jonathan proposed a long-term strategic plan, David ignored it. When Jonathan offered to buy the company—if his father wouldn’t manage it right, he would— David responded with what Jonathan calls “an outrageous number” and the declaration that it was not for sale.

Walking away would have been the easy—and, arguably, the smart— move. What rich kid in his right mind wants to get into a fight with his centimillionaire dad over control of a small company in a zero-glamour business? In this case, though, the rich kid, now an alumnus of Forbes’ 30 Under 30, turned out to be every bit the audacious, shrewd and determined entrepreneur his old man had been. And he decided to stand up to his dad.