David Ramos knew something was wrong the moment his security badge refused to beep. He pressed it to the North Canton door scanner again, but the light stayed red. Ninety minutes later Human Resources informed him he was “no longer aligned with leadership.” His next move was to open LinkedIn. “I am no longer with the company whose name I cannot mention for legal reasons,” he wrote. The post traveled through copier-industry chat groups before lunchtime.
Rewind forty-eight hours to the second-floor conference room. Chief Executive Austin Vanchieri sat at the far end, one palm resting on a stack of acquisition binders. A projector threw cascading red numerals across the wall: eight lines of upcoming maturities. In the third row sat a covenant from Encina Private Credit, the lender that replaced Ares Management at the top of the capital stack.
Visual Edge IT, known in dealer circles simply as Edge, is a quilt of thirty-four former independents stitched together since 2017. Trucks branded with a blue-and-white ribbon drop Konica Minolta presses at regional hospitals and Canon machines at county offices. Recently those same trucks carry laptops and firewall appliances, proof of the company’s pivot toward managed IT.
Growth came by way of debt. Ares Management funded the original roll-up with a subordinated note, then watched revenue miss projections. By late 2022 the loan stopped paying cash interest. Ares swallowed a $48 million write-down and flipped the paper into preference shares that pay with more paper instead of cash. Encina Private Credit stepped in during 2023 with $40 million of first-lien financing. Encina collects its interest monthly. Ares waits for better days.
Ramos believed better days required candor. He repeatedly urged the board to meet with Ares face-to-face and disclose the real debt picture. After weeks of internal debate, HR walked him out. The official cause: “misalignment with leadership.” In subsequent posts, he accused leadership of hiding covenant stress and gaslighting employees.
Competitors watch with curiosity. Marco Technologies and Impact Networking have their own national ambitions. They know that if Encina chooses to tighten covenants, Edge could part out profitable clusters. Customers, OEM partners, and even rival dealers would line up to bid.
Ares, for its part, has a pattern. In packaging, advertising logistics, and precision metals the firm has waited, refinanced, waited again, then sold when margins recovered. That patience suggests Edge will see at least one more refinancing or perhaps a break-up sale before any bankruptcy lawyers enter the room. The decisive factor is time: time to convert copier relationships into recurring IT contracts, time to lift the fixed-charge ratio, time to convince both lenders the story still works.
Inside North Canton headquarters, badge scanners glow green for those still aligned. Technicians keep rolling to client sites, cardboard dust rises with every unboxed drum, and a clause in twelve-point font waits on the screen for its next quarterly check. Whether the numbers move in the right direction before 2026, no one yet knows. For dealers across the country, the silent math of leverage has become just as important as the hum of a well-oiled fuser.
Celeste Dame 🚀🧠
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