Private equity--Use it or Lose it

Use it or lose it. That is the choice faced by some buyout firms sitting on piles of capital they have raised but not invested. The firms are unlikely to give it up without a fight. That was the message I heard while visiting Boston last week and speaking with a large number of private equity firms. They definitely are stressing about finding good companies as the American market is over-served and seen to be saturated. The funds had been counting on Europe but now that is a big muddle. Australia is too far and the time distance burns out the teams. So that leaves Canada. 

The Wall Street journal's JOHN JANNARONE  explains the increased pressure in private equity investing which is good news for Canadian business owners.

A fund-raising arms race last decade was followed by a sharp slowdown in investments, leading levels of dry powder to surge. Such undeployed capital stood at a record $280 billion among U.S.-focused buyout firms at the end of 2009, according to research firm Preqin.

The catch is that firms generally agree to invest capital within five years or return it to investors. For some, the deadline is fast approaching. U.S.-focused buyout funds have $51 billion that must be used before the end of 2011, Preqin says. Another $213 billion needs to be invested by 2015.

Raising new money isn't that easy anymore. So, the worry is that firms will lower the bar on the quality of investments to ensure existing funds are put to work. One risk is that firms begin to chase after deals and overpay. 

Why Private Capital?

One of our clients was a Canadian domestic company with large margins and a solid customer base of Canadian banks was looking to enter the public markets.  This would have been a nightmare. The public market option is typically not ideally suited for mid-market companies, often lacking liquidity as investors lose interest after the initial public offering.

In addition to the high initial costs of an IPO, business owners must pay annual fees for audited financial statements and supply quarterly reports to their shareholders. There is often the conflict of interest in meeting short-term expectations with long-term growth plans. The initial sacrifice of payout to the investor should be rewarded with later value from the realized growth potential of the firm.

Furthermore, the lack of privacy of confidential information, once a company goes public, may decrease a company’s competitive edge as margins are disclosed to competitors, suppliers and customers, among other strategic information.

Private capital has the flexibility to meet a wide range of business owner needs, while providing privacy of confidential information and a long term outlook in realizing growth potential. A PE fund provides strong financial expertise to complement the management team. With no short-term external reporting requirements, management is able to better focus their capital on growth opportunities that add value to existing shareholders. PE funds assist in improving business operations through efficiency or by supplying expertise in exploring new markets for growth.

PE funds are also able to leverage their existing relationships with banks and lawyers to provide the business owner with access to a broader base of financing options than they had before. American private capital investors in particular are able to use their relationships with banks and lawyers south of the border to support investment opportunities in Canada. This provides a much larger pool for Canadian business owner’s to dip their toes in and Canadian business owners are no longer restricted to the kiddie side of the pool.

In amidst all the talk of PE funds building equity value, let me  emind the business owner that there is a lot of hype around adding value and that there is often the need to cut through all the clutter. Some PE funds are able to add tangible value to building the business through growth, others are more focused on cost cutting, and others are all about the hype.

It is also important to consider the decision making process as PE financing entails the addition of a partner. It is important to retain the rapid decision making that exists prior to the PE fund investor while incorporating the additional expertise of the board members.

An example of a “Homerun” investment for the Monitor Clipper Partners entailed a small Canadian investment in 2004. The founder owned 70% of a truly amazing business model and wanted to diversify holdings. The fund was able to dissuade the owner from listing on the public markets for the reasons listed above. Instead the individual sold half of his equity position to private equity investors, effectively taking money off the table. With the injection of working and growth capital, the business growth rate was accelerated. The 35% ownership structure and additional capital to turbo charge growth and expand the business footprint into the U.S., grew to become 75% of what the initial business value was, upon exit, three years later. For Monitor Clipper, this was their highest IRR on a three year investment and a Canadian investment to boot!

What Do Private Capital Investors Look for?

The private equity industry really got going in the 1970s when, Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (“KKR”), one of the present day PE titans, was founded. The industry has flourished in goods times while being hit hard during the Great Recession. The fundamental framework though has always remained the same regardless of whether the economy was at the peak or trough of the business cycle. The criteria for evaluating investment opportunities are uniform globally.

The international criteria for what constitutes an attractive investment consist of solid industry characteristics, meaningful competitive differentiation, strong management with equity ownership, and business growth potential. PE fund investors look for a compelling reason to invest and love growth stories where the business owner is looking for capital to excel the current growth of their business.

Strong management with a meaningful equity stake in the business is a crucial criterion for investors. Often, if an existing owner is looking for a complete exit, this is a sign of worry for the investing party. PE funds like to create partnerships and can help owner managed or family businesses acquire ownership if they don’t have it initially. Funds can help take some cash off the table initially but with the continued presence of management and a capital injection from the investor, grow the equity stake remaining into a larger pie.

The alignment of growth plans between investors and business owners needs exist for the growth phase for the business to bear fruit. The due diligence process prior to investment from both parties ensures there is a strong alignment initially.

 Increasingly, entrepreneurs and business owners are competing on a global platform. Like companies, private equity funds are becoming more multinational. The Harvard Endowment invests capital in locally based Canadian private equity funds such as Torquest and Birch Hill Equity Partners. Private equity is an alternative asset class that allows institutional and high net worth investors exposure to a different risk-return scenario. Some mid-market and virtually all large cap funds are multi-national and as funds follow the attractive returns, increasingly they are moving to Asia.

Some PE funds are quite diverse in national or ethnic origin of personnel. You’ll be hard pressed to find many native New Yorkers working on Wall Street these days as Jacoline Loewen, author of Money Magnet can attest to. Broad similarities among private equity firms are evident around the world. The big differences lie in a firm’s strategy and culture and their ability to operate effectively internationally -- the litmus test for U.S. funds. 

You can't be for jobs and against business

Business has taken a beating and capitalism questioned this past two years. Common sense is beginning to flow back into the media as journalists hear from business owners that they might as well sell their companies and get a union job. 
Our business owners need to know they are appreciated and that their service to business, usually at the cost of family time, is recognized. Private equity takes on these same risks as the owner, putting at risk their own capital, unlike a bank. Private equity is also getting a beating as the American tax laws change to show that their risk taking will not be seen as equal to the business owner.
With the increasingly negative rhetoric about business, I was pleased to read Thomas Friedman's article on the best gift to a graduate -- a start up. Of course, encouraging start ups requires many elements of the business environment to work together. Above all, the knowledge by society that founding and running a business takes enormous effort is the most critical. Otherwise, taxing those who make jobs will push their incentives down. 
Here's Thomas Friedman:

We owe our young people something better — and the solution is not that complicated, although it is amazing how little it is discussed in the Washington policy debates. We need three things: start-ups, start-ups and more start-ups. 

Good jobs — in bulk — don’t come from government. They come from risk-takers starting businesses —  businesses that make people’s lives healthier, more productive, more comfortable or more entertained, with services and products that can be sold around the world. You can’t be for jobs and against business.

 I asked two of the best people on this subject, Robert Litan, vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, which specializes in innovation, and Curtis Carlson, the chief executive of SRI International, the Silicon Valley-based innovation specialists.

Carlson said he would begin by creating a cabinet position exclusively for promoting innovation and competitiveness to ensure that America remains “the world’s new company formation leader.” “Secretary Newco” would be focused on pushing through initiatives — including lower corporate taxes for start-ups, reducing costly regulations (like Sarbanes-Oxley reporting for new companies), and expanding tax breaks for research and development to make it cheaper and faster to start new firms. We need to unleash millions of entrepreneurs.

Litan said he’d staple a green card to the diploma of every foreign student who graduates from a U.S. university and push for a new meaningful entrepreneurs visa (the current one, the EB-5, requires $1 million of capital that few foreign entrepreneurs have). It would grant temporary residence to any foreigner who comes here to establish a company and permanent residency if that company generates a certain level of new full-time jobs and revenues. One of the best moves we could make, adds Litan, would be a long-term budget deal that would address the looming Social Security/Medicare payouts for baby boomers. Proving to the bond market that we have our long-term fiscal house in order would keep long-term interest rates low and thereby “encourage private investment more than any tax cut.”

Nevertheless, I’d also cut the capital gains tax for any profit-making venture start-up from 15 percent to 1 percent. I want our best minds to be able to make a killing from starting new companies rather than going to Wall Street and making a killing by betting against existing companies. I’d also impose a carbon tax and balance that with a cut in payroll taxes and corporate taxes. Let’s tax what we don’t want and encourage what we do.

Why I Use Other People's Money says Michael Lee-Chin

“Do you know a wealthy person? Hold their image in your mind and I will show how there are a few golden principles to how they grew their wealth,” said Michael Lee-Chin, one of Canada’s billionaires at Airsprint Jet’s client reception. Michael shared that there are rules to getting rich and that he would bet that this person of wealth you were imagining, used these rules. He challenged that the answer would be "yes" to his five questions. So here are Michael’s five questions which are the golden rules to growing wealth:

1. Did this person of wealth own their business and a few other businesses they knew very well?
2. Did they know these businesses were in a good long-term industry?
3. Did they own these businesses for a significant time?
4. Did they manage the tax implications?
5. Did they use other people’s money to grow their businesses?

Question number five is the most critical – how to use other people’s money to grow your own wealth.  It is also the most challenging for business owners.
To think about using other people’s money and then to grow the business is talking higher risk than many owners can handle. Rather than investigate further, they throw up road blocks. First is an initial gag reflex to sharing control and decision making power, which comes with using other people’s money. 

There is fear of inviting in financial experts who are weasels and who may steal the business. 

Then there is satisfaction with how the business runs today; the owner may not feel a pressing need.  Most owners meet their level of revenues that they can manage, and they stop there. Why risk any of their personal money to grow? Rather take it out and buy property, stocks and other --frankly--lower return investments.
Michael Lee-Chin would remind you that the time for opportunity is when everyone is afraid – like right now. He also talks about how some level of success invites complacency. Michael says that the the winners learn how to other people’s money – private equity--and understand their road blocks. these are often fears. Understand these fears. 

Decide if you really want to create wealth. If you own a business and you want to become wealthier, learn how to use other people’s money – private equity money. 

Lee-Chin learnt this in 1979 when he came across a copy of John Train’s 1980 book The Money Masters—and was exposed for the first time to the buy-and-hold value philosophy of investing guru Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “All of a sudden I was twigged on to an investing strategy that made sense to me,” says Michael. He borrowed money to purchase $500,000 of Mackenzie Financial stock. After four years, this stock appreciated seven-fold, and Michael used the profits to own his own business, a small Ontario-based investment firm called AIC Limited. At that time, Advantage Investment Counsel had assets under management of just $800,000. Within 20 years, AIC grew from less than $1 million and – at its business peak – posted more than $15 billion in assets under management. In September 2009, it was purchased by Manulife. At all stages of the business growth, Michael used other people's money and is now on Canada's Billionaire's list. As Michael ended his talk, his helicopter out on Airsprint's runway began to crank up, and then he was gone but he left behind a great deal of energy in that room of business owners.

Jacoline Loewen, expert in private equity and author of Money Magnet: How to Attract Other People's Money to Your Business.

And why bother with values?

Values are just behaviors – specific, nitty-gritty, and so descriptive they leave little to the imagination. People must be able to use them as marching orders because they are the how of the mission, the means to the end -- winning.
In contrast to the creation of a mission, everyone in a company should have something to say about values. Yes, that can be a messy undertaking. That’s OK. In a small enterprise, everyone can be involved in debating them in all kinds of meetings. In a larger organization, it’s a lot tougher. But you can use company-wide meetings, training sessions, and the like, for as much personal discussion as possible, and the intranet for broader input.
Getting more participation really makes a difference, giving you more insights and more ideas, and at the end of the process, most importantly, much more extensive buy-in.
The actual process of creating values, incidentally, has to be iterative. The executive team may come up with a first version, but it should be just that, a first version. Such a document should go out to be poked and probed by people all over an organization, over and over again. And the executive team has to go out of their way to be sure they’ve created an atmosphere where people feel it is their obligation to contribute.
Now if you’re in a company where speaking up gets you whacked, this method of developing values just isn’t going to work. I understand that, and as long as you stay, you’re going to have to live with that generic plaque in the front hall.
But if you’re at a company that does welcome debate – and many do -- shame on you if you don’t contribute to the process. If you want values and behaviors that you understand and can live yourself, you have to make the case for them.
Read more at Jack and Suzy Welch.

One question when doing your Mission - How are you going to win in this game?

Business owners needing to push their people more in a shared direction look to the Mission statement. Yet, when I am working with companies, I meet many owners who believe the Mission is a description only, not an aspirational dream. They also stick to the safe words and descriptions - "we find world class solutions for our customers." So what? That is what everyone is doing. If your Mission is the same as any business in your industry, tear it up and start again with your senior team. Make sure you put in a financial goal too.
I have followed Jack Welch's principles of strategy for twenty years and I think his definition of the Mission is the best I have seen. By the way, good Private equity firms  know how to use the Mission statement. Make sure you ask about their expertise in using them.
Jack Welch believes that: 

An effective mission statement basically answers one question: How do we intend to win in this business? 

It does not answer: What did we used to be good at in the good old days? Nor does it answer: How can we describe our business so that no particular unit or division or senior executive gets pissed off? Instead, the question “How do we intend to win in this business?” is defining. It requires companies to make choices about people, investments, and other resources, and prevents them from falling into the common mission trap of asserting they will be all things to all people at all times. The question forces companies to delineate their strengths and weaknesses and assess where they can profitably play in the competitive landscape. 

Yes, profitably – that’s the key. Even Ben & Jerry’s, the crunchy-granola, hippy, save-the-world ice cream company based in Vermont, has “profitable growth and increased value for stakeholders” as one of the elements of its three-part mission statement because its executives know that without financial success, all the social goals in the world don’t have a chance.Now, that’s not saying a mission shouldn’t be bold or aspirational. Ben & Jerry’s, for instance, wants to sell “all-natural and euphoric concoctions” and “improve the quality of life locally, nationally and internationally.” That kind of language is great in that it absolutely has the power to excite people and motivate them to stretch.
At the end of the day, effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important.
Read more of Jack Welch's views and Suzie Welch.

Succession when your son is 50 plus is too tough

Succession, which has never been easy for families, is getting tougher. Today, greater longevity means many patriarchs stay in power much longer, forcing a whole generation of family members into other pursuits. 

“Kids” these days don’t want to wait until they’re 50 plus to take charge. By that time, they have usually found their own passion or are weakened by waiting in the wings, so to speak.

This is an enormous threat to the ability of the company to survive and thrive when the next generation do finally pick up the reins. Cracks in the family happiness are often showing too. There is nothing sadder than seeing a family where Dad has not given a clear line of succession and worked hard to pass over the real decision making and leadership before son or daughter reaches middle age.

At the same time, too many patriarchs adhere to the age-old practice of passing the reins to progeny, regardless of talent. That tradition brought acceptable odds of success in less competitive eras. One way to allow the next generation to remain in the business is to bring in 30% private equity partners who understand how to accommodate family business dynamics but make sure there is an excellent COO to run the show. I have seen some talented managers work well within the family business environment, respecting the family business ownership structure as well as drawing on the private equity skills.

Jacoliine Loewen, family business expert recommends:

Every Family's Business: 12 Common Sense Questions to Protect Your Wealth

Family businesses emphasize wealth preservation, not growth

Family businesses are a major part of the Canadian economy and being in one myself, I can see the strength of the more resilient culture. Employees may feel more of a sense of belonging and human connection more than working for a professionally run corporation. These are reasons that family businesses, in these troubled times, have been better performers. These are also the reasons private equity treasures family businesses above all other types of business ownership.

I have been working with family business owners over the past decade and I have come to see a big threat looming in their future which, if left ignored, will impact on the future of the Canadian economy.

My  major concern is that I notice the main goal for family businesses is to preserve wealth, over accumulation. In other words, the family business is less likely to invest in new projects for the sake of growth.

“Why would I risk our own money to grow? If it is not successful, I am out of pocket,” is the typical comment. Quite understandable, but in this new environment, that sort of thinking will be the ruin of the family business.

I am not the only one has picked up this pressing crisis. Jack and Suzy Welch also write about this increasing crack in the foundation of the family business which will threaten their survival.  Jack Welch says,

“That protect-the-assets approach often worked in simpler times, but it could prove devastating in a global environment where risk-taking and growth are essential to survival.”

There is direct action for family business owners to counter this global economy threat to the family business and I usually ask these question: Would you like to have the world's best business minds apply their ideas to the business? Would you like to grow into new geographic regions but without using your own cash? Would you like to reduce your growth risk by having experts who have already worked in those regions?

Private equity brings these valuable skills to the Board room table, and far more. To have Board advisors who are global and who bring a third of the money to the business, it is a winning path to growth of wealth. 

I strongly encourage family business to bring in private equity partners who sit at Board level, but do not get involved in the day-to-day operations. This extra investment will allow the family to take money out to invest in other companies which diversifies their own wealth while also addressing their reluctance to invest in the risk of growth. 

Jacoline Loewen, expert in family business and private equity, author of Money Magnet, now used as a text book for Ivey Business Schools' MBA program.

How to get your hotshot people boosting revenues

Private equity wants to know how to get a business bringing in revenues.

The first place I look is to see if the business leader wants control. The Mission statement can give the rough map of the path forward, but it also relinquishes control to the managers, something that often grates with baby boomer leaders who are used to commanding all. It is confusing, infuriating, and to some leaders weak, to reduce control, and just like the interpretation of motherhood, leaders may not want to accept alternative interpretations of what the Mission means.

I have observed, though, that most women leaders are able to accept that they cannot control their people. Women leaders are exciting when they roll out strategy with their teams because they tend to nurture an openness, leading to that first spark: Permission to have intellectual and emotional curiosity about how to enhance the business. Canada’s school system can struggle to develop this curiosity – my grandfather said members of one union teaching all of our children could perhaps be a little one-sided in their views – and I fear for our future work force if universities think that preventing raging debate in public means that the ideas also stop. That is one of the ways leaders have the illusion they are in control, as we witnessed recently with University of Ottawa’s debacle over Ann Coulter, an American Conservative pundit. The result is I am now curious about her books.

As leaders of businesses or universities, I think once we own up that we cannot control every action, and that luck and timing play a large role, we can improve our odds of success.

Here’s the catch: We desperately need to believe that we are in control of events. Only high self-esteem and a sense of responsibility for results boosts us from bed on cold mornings. With a detailed, language-rich Mission Statement, a leader can improve this sense of control for her team so that they feel personal accountability. They can get that spidey-tingle that there is work to be done, let’s do it.

If a leader’s attitude is that the Mission is to help guide those people brimming with enthusiasm to get out into the real world and take a few punches, fantastic. Without those experiences, management stagnates. Your hotshot people want to take on more in their interpretation of essential work, to try their ideas and leadership style to make it happen or not. Managers can get moving on their own initiative, fit into the company’s deep marketing “groove,” while developing the gumption to be able to change drastically when that groove proves to be a rut.

We are all very aware that today’s star product is quickly tomorrow’s Tiger Woods.

Having colleagues who are running counter to your views and not under your exact control is the only thing that ensures organizational adaptation and survival. Most long-term companies look quite different over decades and there is usually a leader who encouraged their people to take risks while following that North star and dumping the boat every now and then.

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