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New J.D. Power CEO Sees Growth Before IPO Jay Leno Won't Touch

New J.D. Power CEO Sees Growth Before IPO Jay Leno Won't Touch

(Bloomberg) -- Dave Habiger is a serial CEO who’s led companies through rapid growth and IPOs, two skills he’ll put to use as the new boss at J.D. Power -- not that his experience will persuade his friend Jay Leno to buy the stock, but more on that later.

Habiger, an adviser to Pritzker Group Venture Capital LLC and Silver Lake Management LLC, was named the new chief executive officer of J.D. Power on Wednesday. He’s taking an undisclosed stake in the closely held market research and data analytics firm and intends to take the minimum compensation, a fact that supports the idea he will take the XIO Group-owned company public rather quickly.

The timing of a likely initial public offering will depend on what the market is like a year from now, Habiger said in an interview. In the meantime, he sees opportunities to grow the consumer-oriented parts of what has historically been a business-to-business organization. He replaces Finbarr O’Neill, who is retiring after a decade at J.D. Power.

“We’ll be looking at rapid growth in both the existing market research and data, as well as applying that brand to other consumer-facing initiatives and offerings,” Habiger said, noting a planned focus on acquisitions. “For a business that doesn’t actually sell to the consumer, it’s amazing how strong the brand is.”

Habiger, 49, has a lot of experience selling companies to the public or to another business. He took consumer software company Sonic Solutions public before selling it to Rovi Corp., which later merged with TiVo. He filed for an IPO of NDS Group and instead sold it to Cisco Systems Inc. for $5 billion. As CEO of Textura, he sold the cloud-services company to Oracle Corp.

He also has some skills under the hood. He used to convert cars from gas-burning to electric-powered, including Porsche sports cars. Elon Musk, who Habiger said once considered hiring him as Tesla’s CEO, asked for one, but others had already made deposits and production was slow.

Habiger’s experience with big data and software, more so than his longtime interest in electric cars, should help accelerate J.D. Power’s growth and make its value evident to investors, said Martin Eberhard, a Tesla co-founder.

“Digitizing is a first step,” he said in a telephone interview. “The next step is to really figure out how to monetize what you’ve digitized.”

Habiger’s car knowledge also helped him hit it off with Jay Leno, when both were presenting at an awards ceremony. The friendship was sealed when Habiger’s father, an engineer and entrepreneur, let Leno have a fuel filter for his Model T Ford that the senior Habiger had designed for his own father’s Model A.

Leno said he’s glad to see that J.D. Power’s new boss is someone who would “understand why people would buy a Mustang when the backseat isn’t as big as an SUV’s.”

But he’s not interested in the IPO, even for a solid brand under a proven CEO. Leno said he’s hyper-conservative with investments and sees even so-called “minimal-risk” ones as too dangerous. “I work and my money relaxes,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jamie Butters in Southfield, Michigan, at jbutters@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, Lena Lee, Anne Riley Moffat

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