Former Equity Office CEO is back in real estate and you’ll never guess what he’s up to

Sam Zell's former company's chief now sells plant-covered wall panels to office tenants

Richard Kincaid (Credit: Sagegreenlife)
Richard Kincaid (Credit: Sagegreenlife)

Richard Kincaid was CEO of Sam Zell’s Equity Office Partners in 2006 when Blackstone Group bought the nation’s largest office landlord for $39 billion. He’s still rolling in the green today, but not in the sense you might expect.

After stepping back from business for awhile, Kincaid eventually got back into the office game, albeit in a far different role: he’s now the CEO of Sagegreenlife, which sells plant-covered “living wall” panels to businesses, according to Crain’s.

Speaking about his new gig, Kincaid said building Sagegreenlife was harder than building Equity Office.

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“I’m proud of these products and where we’ve come, but it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Kincaid told Crain’s. “Logic told me so many times to shut it down, but I’m so happy I didn’t.”

Kincaid helped switch the Fulton Market-based company from a consumer market to a business-to-business market after he joined the company in 2016. Among the firm’s clients are Mars Food, the Oakland A’s Stadium and Patagonia.

The green custom walls cost between $150 and $190 per foot, while a line designed by architecture firm Gensler with waterproof video screens and dry-erase surfaces runs up a bill of between $5,000 to $12,000.

Sagegreenlife now has a sales pipeline of more than $9 million and Kincaid, who owns a roughly 80 percent stake, predicted the company would bring in $65 million in revenue over the next three or four years. [Crain’s] — Joe Ward

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