About
Gary Pryor Grant
Gary Pryor is a former business development entrepreneur and investment banker,
who specialized in mergers and acquisitions within the foodservice and fintech industries.
• Pryor’s specialization in transactions began in 1982 with Merrill Lynch International and
the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York (JP Morgan).
• Pryor left Morgan to form his own corporate finance firm in New York assisting
foodservice companies with M & A and corporate finance. He was a partner with
management in many of the 20 plus projects he directed in Boston, New York,
Washington DC, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Prague, and Nairobi, Kenya. While in NYC, Pryor
also represented private equity groups with retail and institutional food and beverage
capitalization and sales/exit facilitation.
In 1995, Pryor was recruited by Arizona based Circle K Stores Inc. / Tosco to manage a 217-store fresh food program and develop a hybrid grocery/restaurant, prepared foods store named Emily’s Market. As a result, He is well known throughout the food industry as one of the founders of the “Home Meal Replacement” industry. • Following his tenure with Circle K, Pryor joined Hunter Wise Financial Group, a California based NASD/FINRA investment banking firm, as the partner in charge of mergers and acquisitions, where he specialized in buy-side representations for private equity funds. While at Hunter Wise, Pryor led the acquisition of Smith & Wesson from Tomkins PLC. • Following his tenure at Hunter Wise, Mr. Pryor acquired several food related businesses including three USDA certified frozen food manufacturing companies as well as multiple restaurants throughout the United States. • From 2013 to 2020, Pryor served as Executive Chairman of Lendaily Inc., and facilitated the merger between Lendaily Inc., and FuturePay Holdings Inc., a Merchant Branded Fintech company. • Mr. Pryor received a BA in Government from St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY.