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October 31, 2024
The Rise Of Earn Outs
By Adam Burroughs
Gordon Rees LP’s Craig Heryford on how earn outs are being used in the market and why owners should use caution when negotiating them.
August 8, 2024
Pittsburgh Deal Activity: Enhance business value before selling with a Tax Diagnostic Review
MelCap Partners' Tom Freeman explores tax diagnostic reviews and how they can provide significant value to sellers as they seek to exit their businesses.
May 9, 2024
Economic Realities Change Buying Criteria, Seller Outlook
Louis Plung & Co. Partner Tony Montanaro on the conditions in today's market and how they're impacting both buyers and sellers.
April 10, 2024
Pitsburgh Deal Activity: Increased scrutiny on forecasts in a volatile market
While the primary impetus for this change in buyer perspective stems largely from the pandemic and other macroeconomic factors like interest rate increases and complex geopolitical conditions, we expect that this aspect of buyer assessment will become a regular step in the deal process for the foreseeable future.
March 7, 2024
It's Complicated: Earnouts And Their Impact On A Deal
The full Pittsburgh Smart Business Dealmakers Conference Kickoff panel offer their takes on the earnout's role in a deal — for better and worse.
June 2, 2023
Estate Tax Planning Considerations for Contemplated M&A Transactions
The landscape of estate tax planning is set to undergo a significant change in the coming years, as the estate tax exemption is set to revert to pre-2018 levels at the end of 2025. This means that
April 21, 2023
Finding Opportunity In Disruption
Defiant Capital Group Founder Jonathan Dane on launching the firm, his perspective on how the investor mindset has changed over the years since, and offers tips on post-business investment life.
January 13, 2023
Deal Pulse Pittsburgh: Earnouts Increase In Popularity
Given today’s challenging economic environment, earnouts will likely remain an important feature in M&A deals.
December 16, 2022
Deal Pulse Pittsburgh: M&A Key To Corporate Strategies Despite Uncertainty
Rising inflation and interest rates, as well as a looming recessionary period, continue to be top-of-mind for dealmakers. The economic uncertainty caused by these issues has led to modest M&A volatility. However, valuations for high-quality businesses remain lofty.
November 18, 2022
Deal Pulse Pittsburgh: Rising Interest Rates Impact Private Equity
Interest rates have become a greater challenge, leading private equity to counter by increasing the portion of equity placed into deals to better manage the cost of debt.
October 21, 2022
Deal Pulse Pittsburgh: M&A Outlook in a Volatile Economy
The Pittsburgh M&A market has faced the same, if not worse, headwinds as the broader U.S. Deal volume for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 was 25.6 percent lower than the same time period in 2021, while September 2022 deal volume was 50 percent lower than September 2021. Still, Pittsburgh saw the closing of several noteworthy transactions.
February 25, 2022
Bold predictions for the 2022 M&A year
Will 2022 bring us a recession? The best deal year ever? Or the end of working from home? Predictions abound as the Dealmakers Roundtable kicked off this year's Pittsburgh Smart Business Dealmakers Conference.
July 16, 2021
De-risking the de-SPAC transaction
There’s a lot of talk about SPACs, blank-check companies that raise money to fast-track a private company into the public market. What doesn’t get discussed as much is the de-SPAC transaction — the second part of that process.
April 23, 2021
Post-COVID capital trends to watch
As buyers and sellers look to transact, Mark Guterman, managing director of loan syndications for First National Bank, and Martin McCormick, managing director and head of FNB Mezzanine Finance for F.N.B. Corporation are seeing capital trends starting to take shape.
January 22, 2021
Metz Lewis' George Thomas on the surprising strength of M&A through the pandemic
Metz Lewis' George Thomas offers his assessment of the M&A market — what it looked like in 2020, and what he expects it will look like in 2021.
June 26, 2020
CMU’s Lynn Banaszak: Priorities are shifting, but innovation interest remains strong
Despite the uncertainty, investors are still very interested in preserving their deal pipelines — continuing to build on the promise of the portfolio of ideas already in development, says Lynn Banaszak, executive director of the Digital Transformation and Innovation Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
May 20, 2020
Babst Calland’s Chris Farmakis: The deal picture should be clearer by summer
While deals are still getting done, many have been pushed backed. However, we likely won't know until summer whether those delayed transactions come back to life, says Babst Calland's Chris Farmakis.
March 6, 2020
PNC’s Gus Faucher doesn’t see a U.S. recession in the near future — even with global concerns
A recession isn’t on the horizon, thanks to factors like consumer spending, PNC Chief Economist Gus Faucher predicts. The U.S., though, may see slower growth in 2020. The X factor, however, could be an external shock like the coronavirus.
February 4, 2020
Rich Lunak on the hot technology market in Pittsburgh
The market for technology companies and disruptive startups remains red hot in Pittsburgh. Innovation Works' Rich Lunak shares what he's seeing in terms of valuations and deal flow.
January 2, 2020
A forecast of what to expect for 2020 Dealmaking in Pittsburgh
Smart Business Dealmakers spoke with Tecum Capital’s Stephen Gurgovits Jr., S&T Bank’s Brian Dobis and Innovation Works' Rich Lunak about what they anticipate for the 2020 dealmaking climate.
December 5, 2019
GTE buys companies with a unique model: entrepreneurship through acquisition
Entrepreneurship through acquisition or search fund can be less risky than starting a company from scratch, and GT Entrepreneurs is one of a handful of firms that help experienced operators find successful businesses. VP of Operations Robert Septak shares how the firm works.
September 24, 2019
Family Offices Are On The Rise in Pittsburgh
Ann Dugan, who founded and led the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh for 30 years says more Pittsburgh-area families putting together a family office.
September 11, 2019
Mill 19 Opens As Manufacturing Innovation Hub
Mill 19 recently celebrated its grand opening as the new home to key leaders in Pittsburgh’s manufacturing industry, including Carnegie Mellon University’s Manufacturing Futures Initiative, the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and Catalyst Connection.
August 7, 2019
CMU’s Farnam Jahanian on talent development and regional investment
Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian is a glass half full kind of guy. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see challenges ahead for those who want to leverage entrepreneurship and innovation to create wealth in the Pittsburgh region.
August 1, 2019
Family Offices: Education And Focus Are Critical To Success
As family offices take an increased interest in direct investing, focus and education are keys to success, says Ann Dugan of the Family Office Exchange.
June 4, 2019
Federated’s Chris Donahue expects active investing to only grow stronger
After buying the smaller Hermes Investment Management, the Federated Investors CEO quickly moved to adopt Hermes' investment strategy of factoring in environment, social and governance criteria.
May 23, 2019
Pittsburgh deal activity hit new high in 2018
The 340 publicly announced deals in 2018 upends the previous record of 308 back in 2007, which was the first year the Allegheny Conference began tracking the 10-county region’s economic data.
May 7, 2019
Yvonne Campos' Next Act Fund gives women seat at dealmaking table
Yvonne Campos is an accomplished businesswoman who built and sold a successful market research and strategy firm. In all her experiences, though, she was never asked to participate in a deal or invest
April 9, 2019
Corporates join VCs to fill pipeline for Pittsburgh tech investment
Pittsburgh’s tech startups attract the lion’s share of funding and attention, says Innovation Works’ Gary Glausser. We spoke with him about trends in tech investing, including highlights from Investment in Pittsburgh’s technology sector report, and the upcoming the AI & Robotics Venture Fair.
March 7, 2019
IAM Robotics’ Joel Reed: Finding capital and talent in a competitive robotics industry
The robotics industry remains in flux, especially as methods for fulfilling consumer orders continue to evolve. But Pittsburgh — and companies like IAM Robotics — is at the center of it all.
