M&A Masters

How do you get owners to stop thinking like operators…

And start thinking like investors?

For the lower middle market, this mindset shift is crucial for a clean exit. 

In this episode, I talk to Sly Buford, founder and CEO of Tenth Street Group, which specializes in helping lower middle market businesses grow, scale, and exit. Sly had an unconventional path to becoming an investor, and he’s here to share how he found M&A success.

In this week’s episode of M&A Masters, we sit down with Marty Fahncke to talk about M&A for the lower middle market.

Marty is a partner at Westbound Road, LLC and has over 30 years of experience in building and growing businesses. 

Listen to learn:

• How businesses can double revenue without increasing sales
• How owners can leave a legacy with their business
• Marty’s takes on M&A trends for 2022
• And more

You might think of M&A as a zero-sum game…

But that’s where many business owners go wrong.

It might surprise you to hear that building trust with the opposing side is the key to securing your clean exit.

This episode’s guest, Alistair McBride, coaches business owners in the fine art of negotiating M&A deals. 

Alistair has seen deals succeed when business owners treat their opponent like their ally.

He calls this “the psychological edge of negotiation.”

In today’s episode, we discuss how you can use this idea to win over the other side and sell them your vision—so you can both close with maximum value.

On this week’s episode of M&A Masters, we’re sitting down with Deborah Smith to talk about real estate, a first on this show!

Deborah is the Co-Founder and CEO of The CenterCap Group. The CenterCap Group, LLC, is a boutique investment bank providing strategic advisory, capital-raising, and consulting related services to public and private corporations, owners, operators and investment managers. They are exclusively focused on the real estate sector, with a deep understanding of what drives the industry and the relationships to back that up. 

Deborah says, “We are all things real estate and we haven’t strayed from that. Our whole goal is to be in the middle… if you think about real estate and you need an advisor, you should call us.”

Listen to learn: 

• Where the interest is in the real estate market right now
• Why looking at ESG in real estate long-term is now more important than ever
• Where The CenterCap Group is most dialed in and how they can help when it comes to long-term growth and valuation
• How reps and warranties insurance helps The CenterCap Group resolve differences to save deals 
• How the population shake up is creating real estate investment opportunities in 2022

On this week’s episode of M&A Masters, we sit down with Patrick Turner to talk about how his company is transforming good companies into great companies through their partnerships. 

Patrick Turner is the Managing Director of VSS. VSS is a private investment firm that invests in the information, business services, healthcare and education industries. Since 1987, VSS has partnered with lower middle-market companies to provide management teams with capital solutions to drive growth. 

Patrick says, “Our focus is on creating value in the companies we invest in. If you don’t grow [your company] you’ll lose it, you can’t stand still. We provide additions that help companies grow. Hopefully, we get involved with them and take them to a different level.”

Listen to this episode to learn:

• What Patrick sees as the key drivers in the current M&A market and how he thinks the investment horizon is changing
• How VSS differs from other private investment firms
• The top 3 industries they are looking to partner with
• His top 3 reasons for using reps and warranties in every deal
• And more

On this week’s episode of M&A Masters, we speak with Jennifer Mandelbaum, Senior Investment Director at Halogen Ventures. 

Halogen Ventures is a California-based Venture Capital fund focused on investing in early stage consumer technology startups with a female on the founding team.

Female led businesses represent a massive opportunity. They deliver higher ROI and deliver higher payouts on exits, but they are still having issues raising money. Halogen Ventures, led by Jesse Draper, is ready to change that by investing in companies creating technologies that are changing lives in the consumer space. 

Jennifer walks us through: 

• The key things that separate Halogen from all the other businesses out there, plus their hands-on strategy that supports the whole of every business they work with
• The 3 word marketing strategy Halogen uses to help women portray the unique gifts they bring to the table
• How they are jumping into women founded companies that support the changing way families live, work, and shop today
• The trends she sees coming for the rest of 2022 and beyond
• And more

Global M&A volumes hit a record in 2021 and that pace is expected to continue as we head into the second quarter of 2022. Family-owned businesses continue to be front and center in many of these deals, which is why I wanted to rewind my episode with James Darnell for my listeners today. I sincerely believe that there is a huge marketplace of companies in the lower middle market that need help. 

James is the Managing Partner of KLH Capital, a private equity firm that focuses on serving family and founder-owned, lower middle-market companies throughout the United States.

M&A Source recognized KLH Capital as the Private Equity Firm of The Year in 2021. At KLH Capital, they are all about added growth and value and helping teams reach new levels of success. Listen to the rewind of this episode to learn:

• Why KLH Capital is focused on businesses at the intersection of realizing their value and reaching for growth
• Why overcoming the fear of technology is the secret to unlocking the potential of the family owned or entrepreneurial led business
• The key to creating partnerships that preserve a company's legacy
• The number 1 reason they use rep and warranty policies in virtually every deal
• And more

If the past two years have taught us anything, it is we need to have a thriving manufacturing sector. With the inability to meet supplies of offshore parts with demand here at home and the new instability in Europe and it’s more important than ever to have a thriving US manufacturing sector. 

That’s why today, on M&A Masters, I am rewinding my conversation with Jessica Ginsberg. Jessica is the Director of Business Development for LFM Capital, a private equity firm founded by operators and engineers. At LFM Capital, manufacturing is all they do, with their focus turned toward investing in private, lower middle-market manufacturing companies in the United States and Canada. 

Listen as we rewind how LFM Capital is:

• Attracting top talent and leveraging partnerships to expand a critical piece of the United States economic landscape 
• Using the 5S philosophy to expand a manufacturing company's legacy 
• Creating trust through their jeans and pickup truck's approach and how that translates to  a virtual world
• Applying the use of reps and warranty as another layer in deal diligence
• And much more 

On this week’s episode of M&A Masters, I’m revisiting my conversation with Ryan Milligan, Partner at ParkerGale. I am rewinding this episode for two reasons. The first is that the ParkerGale Capital podcast, The Private Equity Funcast opened the entire private equity world to me over five years ago.

The second reason is in our conversation. Ryan and I dove deep into how ParkerGale uses a tool to actively measure culture to create improvements and make companies better places to work. As you probably know, culture is the biggest buzzword of the last few years. According to Caroline Castrillon, a contributor to Forbes, 2022 is the year of workplace culture—so this episode is worth another listen. 

Ryan says, “Culture is kind of a stew that’s created from a whole list of things… the combination of communication… consistency and then listening to your organization.”

Listen to learn:

• The unique way ParkerGale approaches deals, and how they are using transparency to circumvent surprises
• Which aspects of company culture are the most measurable, maintainable, and ripe for improvement 
• How they use reps and warranties as a release valve for seller pressure 
• The explosion of software and technology in a post pandemic era
• What the ideal ParkerGale target company looks like 
• And more

On this week’s episode of M&A Masters, to celebrate International Women’s Week we’re rewinding my conversation with Suzanne Yoon. In 2020, Suzanne’s firm, Kinzie Capital Partners, in Chicago was honored by the Private Equity Women Investor Network (PEWIN) as the North American female-founded firm of the year. The Wall Street Journal has also recognized her as a top female dealmaker. 

We asked Suzanne how she felt about these honors, she said, “Companies outperform when they have diversity in their leadership ranks and when they have diversity on a board. So that’s both gender and ethnic and experience. I actually attribute some, a lot, of our success at Kinzie to that and not because I’m a woman and I have an ethnic background, but more when you look at our entire team and you see the different experiences we’ve had.” 

Listen as she walks us though: 

• What’s unique about Kinzie—what the Kinzie formula is and how it helps companies execute their vision
• Putting the formula into action, how Kinzie helped one company double its EBITDA in a very short period
• The beauty of reps and warranty insurance: a middleman between buyer and seller
• Women in finance forging the future
• And much more