The Challenges of Assisting Clients with Their M&A strategy

Tell us about MelCap Partners and the services it offers?

MelCap Partners is a boutique investment banking advisory firm that has been providing M&A advisory services, the private placement of debt and equity capital, and general advisory services for nearly 20 years. MelCap is located in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area with a team of 6 investment bankers. Although we are a generalist, we have been successful in developing sector expertise in the following areas: metal processing; food; consumer/retail; trucking/transportation; and speciality distribution to name a few. MelCap focuses on serving middle-market businesses with sales between $10 million and $250 million. Many of the businesses served are founder or family-owned, and going through a once-in-a-lifetime transition or liquidity event. MelCap takes this responsibility seriously as most of our clients are only going to go through this transition once in their life.

Although MelCap provides a variety of investment banking services, we have a sell-side orientation. As a boutique advisory firm, we are able to provide our clients with access to the most sophisticated buyers in the world. Over the years, we have been successful in identifying the most logical buyers for our clients. These buyers can be strategic or financial, domestic or international. In an effort to provide our clients with access to buyers all over the world, MelCap is also a partner in an international M&A advisory firm called Globalscope International, where I’m a member of the board and head of all sector groups.

You founded MelCap Partners nearly 20 years ago – what was the process of setting up the company like? What were your goals for the firm back then?

After working for much larger firms such as PricewaterhouseCoppers and Banc One Capital Corp, I wanted to set up a boutique firm to provide high-level investment banking services to lower middle-market businesses. Over the past two decades, we have been blessed with many wonderful clients and we have been honoured to represent them in once-in-a-lifetime transactions.

In your opinion, what are the particular challenges of assisting clients with planning their M&A strategy?

The key challenge is to really understand the client’s goals and objectives, and then determine if you think you can meet them. The M&A markets create a lot of obstacles to getting deals done. It is important for the client to be surrounded by an experienced deal team and our role is to lead the process and help navigate them through the deal. It is important to anticipate issues before they arise.

Securities offered through M&A Securities Group, Inc.  Member FINRA/SIPC.  MelCap and MAS are not affiliated entities.