By Katie Murar
Pacific Rim Capital Inc., already the country’s largest independent lessor of forklifts, cranes and other material-handling equipment, has more growth in the works.
The company, which has nearly $1 billion in assets under management, recently struck a deal to move into new space at one of the just-built mid-rise buildings at Irvine Co.’s Discovery Park office campus near Sand Canyon Avenue and the Santa Ana (5) Freeway.
It signed a 20,161-square-foot lease at the nearly 135-acre business park, whose latest batch of buildings have been built over the past year. It’s nearly double its current space in the Spectrum.
Pacific Rim moved its headquarters from Aliso Viejo to a nearby building in Irvine in 2014.
“We have prospered for many years in Irvine Co. properties. Our move to the beautiful new building at Discovery Park will accommodate our continued growth as we celebrate our 30th anniversary,” the company’s Chief Executive Dave Mirsky said in a statement.
Colorado to OC
Pacific Rim President Marc Mills and Mirsky were each 22 years old when they left their jobs to create Pacific Rim Capital, a financing services firm that leases material-handling equipment.
The duo met in 1984 in Lakewood, Colo. at a leasing company with a focus on computers and information technology equipment. Mills was vice president of sales, and Mirsky was executive vice president of marketing when they came to see things needed fixing at the company.
“We thought the company had a couple of major issues, and we thought we needed to break the mold and do things differently,” Mirsky told the Business Journal in a prior interview.
“The board didn’t listen, and it caused us to leave.”
They set up Pacific Rim in a 1,000-square-foot shop in Orange County in 1990.
Since then, the company’s seen big growth both domestically and internationally; last year it reported nearly $202 million in revenue, ranking it No. 80 among OC’s largest private companies.
It competes with the likes of Toyota and Wells Fargo, among firms that lease forklifts-related equipment.
“We’re the largest independent one,” Mirsky said. “We’re not associated with a manufacturer, and we work directly with customers.”
Originally published on 8/19/2019, Orange County Business Journal
