Private Equity has a terrible brand these days. Is Private Equity the enemy of growing companies, or can it unlock your ability to scale farther and faster? The answers to these questions can be found at the first annual Founder Friendly Capital Conference, where capital market experts join business owners to go behind the curtain of this potent source of growth.
Florida State University's Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship and the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship have put together a deep dive into the details of Private Equity as financial partners – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
A Message from Doug Tatum, Teaching Faculty in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University
- Former Global Chairman of the Association for Corporate Growth and recipient of ACG’s 2nd Lifetime Achievement Award recognizing his dedication and research on the middle market business segment in the U.S. and around the world.
- Former Chairman & CEO of Tatum CFO, the Largest Executive Services firm in the US and the firm that innovated of the fractional CFO model for emerging growth companies.
- Author of No Man's Land – Where Growing Companies Fail – recipient of four national Best Business Book awards and included in the updated edition of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten.
What does a Founder Friendly PE firm look like – what does it look like to have money on your terms? How do you know if your company is investor-friendly?
The agenda of the conference will include sessions on:
- “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Panel – What Happened & Why”
- “The Why I Did or Didn’t Do it Panel – It’s never just about the money”
- “The Curve Balls and Bad Times Panel – The use of debt in PE”
- “The Investment Banking Process Panel”
Conference Facilitators
“When I discussed this type of educational program with Doug and later with a significant number of my members who are sophisticated Founders running companies with significant earnings – I discovered that there was problem with the power dynamics equilibrium between the Founders, their advisors and the PE firms. There was no place for Founders to ask the questions that needed to be asked in a setting that they could get to the bottom of what really is going on – learn the terminology and examine everybody’s incentives – including their own advisors. Founders were at a disadvantage in the process because of that lack of knowledge. I don’t want any founder to head into a decision of this magnitude without a place to go get their answers on their terms outside of being sold into a deal.”
Lewis Schiff - Conference Facilitator
Founder of the Birthing of Giants Community
Founder of the Moonshots & Moneymakers Oxford University Program
“We serve as Board level advisors to emerging growth founders and family companies – everyone of which are dealing with PE consolidating their competitors – their customers – their supply chains. The Consolidation of industries by PE is driving strategic imperatives that demand that our clients are sophisticated as they face momentous decisions about how to respond. Is there company an add-on – or a platform – what if they wait too long to scale and face competition with fundamental competitive advantages? It is imperative that our Clients and Founders get sophisticated education about how all of this works.”
Kevin Poole - Program Facilitator
CEO of Newport LLC
“As a former CFO of a privately founded company that ultimately become a portfolio company of Berkshire Hathaway – I have seen some of the best of the best – and I spend a lot of my time with Aprio clients discussing their concerns about how – when and why they should respond to the PE firms that are contacting them. The opportunity to get an education about what goes on under the hood in the PE firms decision process , the due diligence gauntlet and to understand what are the market terms of condition to take on a financial partner is imperative. Other wise a founder jumps in the river and gets swept down into the rapids dragged by all of the advisors that will ultimately make big fees on the deal. I and convinced that the Executive Education put together in this course gives the founder a raft and a paddle.”
Eric Krucke - Program Facilitator
CFO Practice Leader, Aprio Advisory - Top 25 US Business Advisory & Accounting Firm
