A framed and autographed rugby jersey hung on a wall behind the receptionistӪs desk, unlikely d̩cor for an office in the Westchester Financial Center in downtown White Plains. The ghost of its last corporate tenant, Citigroup, might still have wandered the corridor of empty, well-furnished executive offices awaiting occupants. The new company, the one that encompasses the lifestyles of rugby and fitness and exercise, Pilates centers and rugby tournaments, in its diverse and growing enterprises, was just moving in.
“This is a pretty big move for us, as far as us putting our stakes down in the ground,” said Irv Cohen, president of American International Lifestyles L.L.C. (AIL), parent company of American International Media L.L.C. and Apogee Wellness L.LC.
Newly headquartered at 11 Martine Ave., his company has a more public presence in Westchester at its flagship Apogee Pilates and Wellness Center, which opened last March at 140 Mamaroneck Ave. in White Plains.
Like the change of tenants in his company”™s subleased space, Cohen himself has gone from the corporate finance sector to an entrepreneurial business focusing on health management and active lifestyles. A certified public accountant, he has served as managing director of ABN AMRO Inc. and as chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Lehman Brothers”™ fixed income business and at Barclays Bank, North America.
In 2005, Cohen left his post as president of JP Morgan Treasury Technologies in Tampa, Fla., to serve on the executive board of DHS Technologies L.L.C. in Rockland County when the private-equity Carlyle Group acquired a 30 percent interest in DHS, a $300-million-a-year manufacturer of high-tech tent shelters for the military and disaster response teams. He later joined DHS full-time and continues to serve as its executive vice president and chief financial officer in Orangeburg.
The CEO and founder of DHS Technologies, A. Jon Prusmack, also is CEO of American International Lifestyles. He, Cohen and Stacy Ciaravella, a Pilates business expert, co-founded Apogee Life Style L.L.C., recently renamed Apogee Wellness. Since opening its flagship White Plains center, Apogee last year bought a women-only fitness center in Bedford Hills. It has since acquired Power Pilates, a company that trains and certifies Pilates instructors, with two studios in Manhattan and more than 100 affiliates studios around the world. Apogee is in the process of capturing what Cohen called “a fragmented market” in fitness and wellness circles.
Â
Focusing too on nutrition, Apogee last year added Myong Private Label Gourmet, a catering and café business based in Cross River, to service its wellness center cafés.
Â
“Our business model is bricks and mortar as well as online,” Cohen said. The company is building an online Apogee Wellness Institute and negotiating an agreement with a strategic partner who will “provide online vitals for both our members and others and to be able to see what their health needs are,” he said.
AIL, which has about 225 employees in it various businesses, had been operating out of dedicated space in the DHS manufacturing plant in Orangeburg. The 17,000-square-foot White Plains headquarters is not only near the flagship Apogee store but also “gives us better access to the city,” Cohen said.
Cohen described his business partner, Prusmack, as “a passionate rugby player, fan, donor.” Prusmack in 1975 started only the second rugby publication in America. In 2006, he purchased the rights to own and operate the two-day USA Sevens international professional rugby tournament from the USA Rugby Organization and formed American International Media. In 2007, he transformed his “Rugby” publication into a color, glossy magazine that might have matched the gloss the sport itself has acquired since its admission into the 2016 Olympic Games. The company that same year launched a website dedicated to rugby news. Both the magazine and the web divisions now operate from the White Plains headquarters.
“Rugby is a lifestyle,” said Cohen, who never played the game growing up in Brooklyn. “We”™re about building businesses within a lifestyle concept.”
American International Lifestyles will bring together its business interests in Las Vegas this month when it hosts the USA Sevens Rugby Tournament, featuring top professional teams from 16 nations competing in 44 matches. More than 100 U.S. amateur teams also will compete in an invitational tournament. The two-day tournament will be shown on ABC television on Feb. 20.
On that same weekend in Las Vegas, Feb. 13-14, the company will host an annual Power Pilates conference that draws professional Pilates instructors from around the world.
At Apogee wellness centers, the baby boomer “is our core customer,” Cohen said. “The baby boomers with discretionary income who now have the time and the inclination to take care of themselves.”
“This is just the beginning of our business,” Cohen said. “Our next move is going to be somewhere in Manhattan. Our plan is to be in every city that matches our demographic,” with California, Texas and Florida as prime areas for boomer-fueled expansion.
“There”™s certainly what a lot of people consider to be a wellness revolution going on,” Cohen said. His company plans to make a healthy profit from it while helping customers stay healthy.
