Getting Your House in Order
Presented By: Bernstein / Porter Hedges LLP
Preparing your company—and yourself—for any type of M&A deal can be an arduous task. But if you view it through the two-pronged lens of getting your company ready for a transaction (including a sale) and preparing yourself—and your management team and employees—for the transaction, then the process becomes much easier. Join a veteran deal attorney, a financial wealth advisor, and pair of C-suite executives as they share insight and advice about the importance of pre-transaction planning.
Moderator:
Partner
Porter Hedges
Allison Pearce focuses her practice on representing public and private companies in mergers and acquisitions, limited liability company formations, and private equity investments. She also regularly advises borrowers and lenders in negotiating senior secured, mezzanine, and subordinated debt facilities as well as SBIC investments of long-term debt and equity capital in eligible small businesses. Allison represents clients in a variety of industries, including the manufacturing, industrial, upstream and midstream energy, oilfield services, and consumer products sectors.
Allison serves on the Firm’s Recruiting and Marketing & Business Development Committees and is also an active member of the Women’s Initiative.
Panelists:
Director, Wealth Strategies Group
Bernstein
Daniel L. Brunello is a Director in Bernstein’s Wealth Strategies Group and is based in the firm’s Houston office. He leads the firm’s Professional Practice Owners group, where he consults with advisors, their professional partners and clients as an expert in a wide field of complex investment planning topics for high-net-worth individuals who are partners in a professional practice, as well as other business owners. Topics include planning for the sale of a practice, succession planning, trust and estate planning techniques, and maximizing benefits from charitable planning vehicles. Daniel has been at Bernstein for over 18 years and has over 23 years of industry experience. He has published research on various planning topics in multiple white papers and written articles for industry journals including Tax Notes and Bloomberg BNA Estates, Gifts and Trusts, and has published multiple blogs on Bernstein.com. He earned his BBA in finance from the University of Texas at Austin, and his MBA from the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. Daniel is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, has earned the Certified Exit Planning Advisor designation and is a member of the Houston Business and Estate Planning Council. In his free time, Daniel enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, watching college football, and is a leader in his son’s Boy Scout troop.
SVP & GM, AscentUP
Ascent Funding
Allie Danziger has a heartfelt passion for helping ambitious people succeed with over 15 years of experience leading, mentoring and recruiting through two businesses which she has started and successfully exited.
In 2009, Allie started one of Texas' top marketing agencies, Integrate Agency, which she sold in 2018. Under her leadership, Integrate Agency generated over $15MM in revenue, employed over 250 young professionals and helped over 600 clients grow.
In 2020, Allie used her experience in coaching, training and hiring hundreds of employees to found Ampersand, a leading workplace training platform focused on teaching the "unwritten rules of the workplace" and providing the skills and confidence young professionals need to succeed. The company's training platform has lifted up over 10,000 professionals and is working towards eliminating the skills gap from higher education to employment and break systemic barriers in place.
Ampersand was acquired by Ascent Funding in 2023 to scale the company’s mission to support student’s success, and Allie now leads the success program as SVP and GM of AscentUP, living in Houston, TX.
