The Right Approach… Have We Lost Our Way?

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

Shortly after the meeting, we spoke with the company’s CEO and CFO and pointed out the company needed to be turned around before it could be sold. Our team could certainly accomplish this, and the company did have certain core prospects. I also explained that true leaders or true captains never have to tell you who they are. If they feel they have to make such a statement, it should leave you with as many questions as it may answer.

The company was a second-generation business. The family had spent more than 75 years in the industry, and in approximately one year’s time, two generations of work and 125 jobs were most likely gone.

Early on, one of the toughest workout lenders I worked with commented, “Rob, consultants and investment bankers are like the quarterbacks. When you win (defined as success) you get too much credit, when you lose (defined as failure) you get too much blame, but once you’re there and in, we (the lender) expect success.”

In 2016, I was appointed co-trustee of an estate. There were two sets of beneficiaries that had been in a continuing lawsuit for more than seven years. The warring sides/factions weren’t totally happy, saying it mildly, with the original trustee, so I was asked to join as co-trustee. One of the main assets of the estate was an operating business, which the judge presiding over the case had instructed us to sell. The sale was completed in the spring of 2017 for an amount higher than anybody had expected.

One could say $3 million dollars doesn’t buy what it once would, but it certainly is real money … and nobody has taken me up on my offer to take everybody out for a burger (real or Impossible) and a beverage to negotiate a settlement. Instead they’d rather take depositions and fight it out in court, draining the estate. I continue to ponder why they persist in their approach when after two and a half years there is plenty of liquidity and no resolution.

Still, despite these head scratching scenarios and the next potential Theranos and Elizabeth Homes situation always a stone’s through away … every now and then a situation gives me phenomenal hope.

The owner wanted to explore a transaction. The owner selected a particular IB that was narrowly focused on his industry but not local to the business. And while this particular company had gone through a transaction almost 30 years ago, it was under an entirely different generation of leadership For this process to succeed, it was critical that the president understood the magnitude of the process so it could be explained to and executed by members of the management team.

What is the Hope for the New Year?

As we turn the calendar page, our wish list for a great, happy and healthy New Year includes:

Fun and Passion:

• Convention season opens: The Asset Based Capital Conference/SFNet and Distressed Investing Conference/TMA. Both with plenty of learning and networking opportunities.

Self-Assessment and Success:

• To hope for success, to hear more of the latter situations and less of the former, and hoping that there are many opportunities for all of us.
• We all open the year with a clean slate. Wishing everybody hits all their budgets and targets and finds plenty of opportunities and the oasis in the desert.