Anthony Guagliano - Gallant Capital

Speaker A: Welcome to Northstar's Private Equity Fast Pitch and thank you for joining us on this journey into the high stakes world of private equity, where bold ideas, big capital and brilliant minds collide. In each episode, we sit down with the trailblazers shaping the industry. Key leaders, CEOs, founding partners and visionaries from top tier private equity firms, influential limited partners and investment banking powerhouses. These aren't just conversations. They're front row seats into the strategies, insights and personal stories from the thought leaders driving the deals that define markets and transform businesses. Whether you're a seasoned investor, an aspiring young professional, or just curious about the forces moving the global economy, you're in the right place. So get ready to dive into the fast paced, high impact world of private equity with your host, the podfather of private equity, Jeff Henningsen.

Speaker B: Welcome back to Private Equity Fast Pitch. I'm, um, your host, Jeff Henningsen. My guest today is Anthony Gualiano, co founder and managing partner of Gallant Capital Partners. One of the things I enjoyed about this conversation with Anthony is how quickly it became apparent that Gallant's success isn't built around financial engineering. It's built around people, operational excellence, and helping good businesses become great businesses. Anthony's career has taken him from DLJ to helping launch Mullis and company, to the Gores Group, and ultimately to co founding Gallant Capital. The through line in this podcast was the consistency in how he thinks. Find businesses with potential, partner with management teams that want to win, then provide the operating expertise, alignment and resources to help unlock that potential. As Anthony says, we're looking for businesses that have the fire and we want to be the gas. We also spend time discussing leadership, mentorship, decision making, and what it takes to build a culture where people have the confidence to make hard decisions. One line from Anthony that I think will stick with the best decision is the right decision. The second best decision is the wrong decision. The only bad decision is no decision. This is a great conversation about private equity leadership and building better businesses. Now, let's jump in. Anthony, I'm really looking forward to this podcast. We've had it on the books for a while and anxiously anticipating the discussion because I think it's going to be fascinating to our listeners for many, many reasons. Why don't we start with obviously introduce yourself, but I want to go back to a little bit of history and how you've gotten to the point where you've started your firm. Why don't you take it from there and we'll get kicked off?

Speaker C: Great. Thanks, Jeff. Uh, really appreciate you having me on the podcast today? I grew up in Canada just outside of Toronto, and my undergraduate was at ah, Western University at the Ivy School of Business. At the time, not many people from Western were heading to Los Angeles for investment banking. But I was fortunate to be a part of one of the early groups that made the move, which has since turned into a really strong, massive pipeline of people moving to Los Angeles to pursue investment banking. I started my career at DLJ in the late 90s, which was an incredible place to learn the business. After a brief stint in a startup during the dot com era, I rejoined the same core group of people at UBS. And then in 2007 I was really lucky to leave with that group and be one of the first handful of people to launch Molis Company. Being part of building that firm was probably the single biggest impact on me and ultimately influenced my decision to start my own firm later on. From Molis, I joined what was then my largest client, the Gores Group, where I really learned how to invest and more importantly, the impact an operationally focused approach can have on businesses. That's also where I met my partner John, and after working closely with him for a number of years, we decided in 2018 to start Gallant Capital. Given how central operations were to our strategy, our first call was to Desmond Nugent, who had worked at Gores with us, and he joined us soon thereafter as a partner to lead that effort.

Speaker B: So really interesting. We were talking a little bit before on when you started with the dot com startup and that was in 2000 and then you started with Molis in 2007. Both really unique times in the economy and you have the dot com implosion in that time period and then in 2008 the market melts down. Tell me about how those times felt for you. And part of my question is I keep feeling like we're a little bit in a 2007 repeat in my mind. So that's why I'm asking.

Speaker C: Yeah, when you put it that way, it sounds like I might be an early indicator of real issues in the economy, but hopefully not. Not. Yeah, listen, uh, both of those times were really exciting and I was a relatively young guy at the time joining industries that were really exciting and a lot of growth was great. Obviously 2001 occurs and the dot com bubble bursts and I had the opportunity to go back and join some great people and really continue the trajectory of my career. Joining Molis in 07 was really an interesting time because obviously we know what happened in 08. I think the opportunity to be involved in businesses in that time of transformation has been probably the single most impactful thing on my career is it hasn't been easygoing, it hasn't been everything up and to the right. I've had to work through the various types of issues and what I found in all of it is partnering with great people and being part of great firms is the difference maker. And being able to go back into banking, being able to work early days of Molis and then as we navigated through some tough times, I couldn't imagine doing that if it was with a group of people I didn't like or I didn't trust or I didn't think were great at what they do. So no, it definitely was some pretty crazy times. But again, both of those situations made me better at my job and I believe became a big part of where I am today.

Speaker B: And as everybody knows, I'm going to ask you at some point about advice to college kids, but I think it's really relevant. You did not have it figured out in 2000 on what you are today. And I want to get closer to you starting your firm after having experience in the investment banking side, after having experience at a highly successful private equity firm. Tell us about the process of where you were thinking and what your goals were with starting Gallant again.

Speaker C: It starts with having a great partner. John and I had spent a lot of time thinking about how to work together and raise the next fund and ultimately decided it was best to do it outside. For us, we had evolved the model from where the Gores Group had been previously really to a good to great model. We saw an opportunity to take all, all of the best parts of what we had done at uh, Gores around operationally focused investing and really focus it on good businesses where we can partner with great management teams and really find and push those businesses to be the best they could be. We often talk about we're looking for businesses that have the fire and we want to be the gas to pour on it. And we think that if we play that role through our operational excellence in our value creation model, we call it otx, uh, onboard, transform and exit. And if we can apply that to good businesses and working with really A plus management teams, we have the opportunity to go and drive outsized returns. And that's really what we started Gallant for. It wasn't to be a vanilla traditional private equity firm. It was to really drive, drive outsized results through improved operations. And that's largely what we've done for the last eight or so years.

Speaker B: Anthony, why don't you take us a little deeper into the types of businesses you acquire and not only just structurally, but industry wise and size. And you've mentioned the passion and that they're on fire, but what does that mean to a listener?

Speaker C: Our focus is on finding businesses where we can add real value through our operational expertise. That often means we're looking at carve outs or divestitures from large corporates or founder and family owned businesses where there's an opportunity to professionalize and um, more importantly, supercharged growth. We concentrate on some industries that we think are the best place for us to focus, mainly business services, industrials in technology. But we cast a really wide net. We review roughly 1500 opportunities a year over ultimately selecting two or three for new platform investments. We're more opportunistic than thematic in how we invest and as I said, at our core we're looking to buy good businesses and help them become great businesses.

Speaker B: So let's talk a little bit more about your OTX value creation strategy. What does that look like for me as a manager, CEO, seller, uh, when I'm under your ownership?

Speaker C: It starts pre close where we are really sitting with management and developing a vision and a mission that we can all agree on. From that we develop a handful and it really is no more than a handful. We call them thrusts. They're areas that we all agree are uh, the places we're going to focus for the next two to four years to really drive the performance of the business. We don't leave that proverbial room and sometimes it takes days or weeks to get there. But we don't leave that room until we are all in violent agreement that these are the areas that we're going to focus. Whether it's top line growth, gross margin improvement, EBITDA improvement, M& A. These are all areas that we all come to absolute lock stock agreement on. And once we do that, it actually makes it a lot easier for the team to move forward because everything we do will ultimately fit into one of those four or five or six thrusts that we've agreed on at the very early stages of a deal. And from there, as I said, it is pure execution. And we line up side by side with our management team and we give them whatever support, advice, therapy that they need to make sure that we ultimately drive the outsized returns that, that we're all focused on.

Speaker B: The area you're talking about, oftentimes the management teams that you have acquired, that's not in their playbook that they Run before. If I'm that person, how are you training me? Because many times they have the skills, they just have never done it. They don't know how to do it. How does that play out in the organization? Because locking arms and everybod agreeing to the same thing is great. I often refer to it as the whiteboard looks great until you start executing it. Right. So how do you execute beyond the agreement of where we're going to go?

Speaker C: Yeah, first what we find is a lot of the management teams, whether it's through a business we're carving out of a corporate or a team that's been working with and for a founder has a lot of this passion and fire in them and they really are looking for ways to unlock it. So we look to identity, identify that in people early. And that to be honest, is a prerequisite to be successful at a Gallant owned portfolio company. We then, if we've identified that in the person, we then give them the resources they need to be successful. That starts with our deep bench of operating advisors. So in every deal we do, we utilize uh, people who work with us on diligence and ultimately join our boards to really, really provide that support to the management team. These operating advisors are people who have been there and done that. They have been in private equity, they've been in big corporates, they've owned businesses themselves, they've started businesses themselves and they can really act as those mentors and provide the guardrails to our management teams. That combined with our internal operations group, which is more focused on the subject matter, pieces of the puzzle and really driving results. You team up, uh, a management team that has fire but maybe has been misdirected or under resourced in the past with really great operating advisors and professionals that have been there and done that, with really great internal team of people at Gallant that have also had their own really great experiences oftentimes working at companies and for other private equity firms. You combine that all together and what we see is really a team effort of people that wants to drive towards the best answer.

Speaker B: I talked to a ton of private equity firms and investment bankers and what I see with you and your team and your firm is a uniqueness in that you have folks that have significant experience in a lot of different buckets. And that's how you have pattern recognition to look around and see around corners and then help your management teams do the same thing. How is it that you identify the passion? Is it an interview process or how do you get the feel for whether the person's the right fit to do the thing that you've agreed to do at the portfolio company.

Speaker C: For us, it really starts with getting a deep understanding and relationship with the person. We're not the types to do a couple of meetings and decide that, uh, the person on the other side of the table is good enough to go and run our business or to partner with. We spend weeks and months getting to know not only the sellers, but the whole first and second layer of management teams. That often means spending lots of time in their cities, at their favorite restaurants, at, uh, their favorite ball teams or spots to go to. We believe that really getting that deep relationship with our partners, whether it's founders and owners that are going to roll into the company with us or management teams, is key to our.

Speaker B: Anthony, what you just said really led me to a question that's bubbling around in my mind. You have 1500 deals you're vetting. You have a passion for getting to know the person to the depth that it takes time to do that. And knowing how structured you are and how I feel like you are from a disciplined perspective, that takes a lot of intentionality. Talk to us a little bit about how your firm is built to run that playbook.

Speaker C: Yeah, it really starts with the people and the amazing people we have across all facets of the firm. On the investing side, operations side, and our business development team. Everybody is working in concert. So we have three people who lead each of the industries. We focus on services, industrials and tech. And then we have Jamie Kim, who runs our business development group and that group along with myself, John and Desmond. We are hyper focused and all aligned on what we're trying to do. And so while we may not be perfectly interchangeable in terms of the jobs we do, we are all engaged and aligned on every business we're looking at and every portfolio company that we're managing, such that we all can get deep with the management team and we can all have real meaningful relationships with our management teams and then the advisors around them that allow us to really provide the support that we need to go and drive those outsized results. And so for us, it begins and ends with the team. And I think that what we've built here at Gallant, uh, is a really special group of people that are in total lockstep and totally aligned in what the mission and the vision is of Gallant and how we're going to achieve the results we're looking for at our portfolio companies.

Speaker B: And what you just described leads me to another interesting question is everything's not Chocolate and roses every day. There are always bad things that happen. And when you have a close team like you have, and I've met many of your folks, and they're really incredible people, but bad things do happen. How does that look at Gallant? And maybe more importantly, if I'm a operating company leader, how does that look between me and Gallant?

Speaker C: Yeah, and that's really where I think the differentiation of our firm versus others is. Everybody looks good when things are up and to the right. It's when you hit those air pockets or potholes and how people perform. And for us, we've been there and done that. I often tell a story to people of my early days at, uh, the Gores Group. After I had left Molis. I think one of the companies that I was working with missed their first quarter that I was working with it on. And I'm sitting at my desk, ready to jump out the window and walk down the hall to some of my operating partners. They looked me dead in the eye, calm as can be, and really said, listen, we're going to see this. We're going to deal with it. We know what to do. And it's that level of confidence and that approach that really, for the last 15 years, I've utilized with my teams, uh, to really let them know that we're going to be the calm ones in the room. We're going to be the ones who can rationally and confidently think through how to drive next steps and how to really get the business through whatever hiccup we're going through. Management teams look to us for that, I'll, uh, say calmness and that, that approach where they can lean on us in those difficult times. If we're running around with our hair on fire, that's not going to give anybody confidence to really drive forward. And I often tell people that our job is to help people make decisions. I use quote often, which I know you're fond of, Jeff, but I often tell people the best decision is the right decision. The second best decision is the wrong decision. The only bad decision is no decision. And we really push that on our people here such that they know that we have to move forward, we have to make decisions, and we have to be bold in the way we make them.

Speaker B: I love that. As you said, I love quotes. It reminds me of one that I just heard. Being able to make good decisions comes from making a lot of bad decisions, right?

Speaker C: For sure. I have that conversation with my team all the time where I let them know and recognize that I can't Count the number of bad decisions I've made. But again, that's better than no decision. And for me, that's core to what we do, which is we're here to provide that strong, steady hand and those guardrails that our management teams need sometimes. And so it's okay to be bold. It's okay to put your neck out there. Even with our junior folks, I'm very adamant in telling them, that's how you learn. That's how you get better. Again, number of times in my career where folks that I was reporting into sort of asked me to maybe take a step back or maybe it wasn't my place to lead something, but that was okay to me. It was a lot better than somebody coming to me and saying, hey, you're sitting in the back row doing nothing. It's time for you to step up. I really encourage the team here to have the confidence and know that I've got their back. There's nothing they can do that I can't unwind. Hopefully they hear me and they believe loud and clear that their job is to absolutely make hard decisions, push forward, and then we as a team will go and make sure that they're all the best decisions. But for me, having the freedom and the confidence to lead is really important piece of what we bring to the table.

Speaker B: I love that because that, to me, if I were working for you, gives me the confidence that I can make any decision and not have my boss jumping down my throat. But really, like you said, helping me with the problem, and it's a great way to lead. I'm curious. What would you say your superpower is? I've not asked any guests this before, but for some reason, I think this is a good one for you.

Speaker C: I think over the years, and maybe this is maturity. Others would call it age. I'll call it maturity, is a willingness to listen to the room. I've had the good fortune of building a team around me here that is exceptional. So if I walked into every room with the answer and, uh, wasn't listening to the room and the people in it, I think that's just a waste of talent. What I've really developed is I think the ability to really listen and be able to follow and trust the people in the room. And it's okay if I disagree. It's okay if I think I have a different path forward. As I often tell people, there's lots of ways to get to the finish line. What's the saying? There's many ways to skin a cat for Me, I'm comfortable letting go of the reins. And that's been the last eight years of running Gallant. That's been a growth area for me, is to really see the people that I've brought in here, that we've brought in as our partners and watch them develop and again, having the trust in them to really lead. So I'm not sure it's a, uh, really cool superpower to have, but I think my ability to listen and to really allow people to follow their own instincts, even when it's not exactly aligned with how I might see the world.

Speaker B: Anthony, one thing that I know about you and your firm is you have a bit of a different system, if you will, on running your playbook from M and A through operations. Can you talk a little bit about that differentiation?

Speaker C: Yes. And this goes back to our experience at, ah, our prior firm where there was a little bit more of a siloed approach between business development, M and A and ops. And what we really believed in and put in place here at Gallant from very early days and continue to focus on today is it's all one team. So starting with business development, working with M and A on developing sort of the areas of focus that they want to go after. But once we've identified and brought in a deal, a lot of other firms that look and act like us have silos built around M and A and ops, where they are effectively doing their own work, separate and distinct from each other. And we really changed that and again evolved the model where we bring in ops to work alongside the M and A professionals very early in a deal, meaning, uh, identifying the deal and deciding whether we want to move forward. Our operations team is very much a part of that discussion. And what that's created is that one team mentality where we're able to identify opportunities and areas that we think we can go and drive value through OTX much earlier in the process. And what that does is it gives us confidence on the M and A side to really lean into areas that maybe we were not so certain that it's a perfect deal for us. But when we bring in the OPS team early and they identify whether it's millions of dollars in a new market opportunity or a go to market opportunity or some area or where we can really drive gross margin improvement, that gives the M, M and A team a lot more confidence to get aggressive and to really go after deals. And so that one team mentality we think, differentiates us from some of our brethren and people who, like I said, look and act like us and has really driven some of the best results we have is that one team mentality.

Speaker B: Early on you talked about creating outsized returns. I would assume that also involves add on acquisitions and other things besides just operational changes. Talk to us about how that works and then why don't you just dovetail right into your thought process on what's the right time to exit and how that looks.

Speaker C: For sure we've done 15 or so platform acquisitions, but about three times that in add on acquisitions. And so it's very much a part of our playbook really whether it's a carve out or a family owned business. Once we feel confident that we've created the right foundation, we believe in adding scale through M and A. We've done that quite successfully across uh, our entire portfolio. For us, time frames, uh, are interesting and certainly Covid had an impact on some of that. But overall when we think about the carve outs that we do, uh, our best work is done early days in the first 12 to 24 months. Not to say that we can't continue, continue to drive operations or do additional M and A, but what we find is our best work is done in those first couple of years. And we've seen that translate into a, um, pretty quick exit on some of our deals. Our first deal we did was a software asset that we exited in 26 months to uh, K1 for three and a half times our money, 90% IRR type return. And that was really, uh, I don't want to say an eye opener, but a realization that we really needed to drive those ROTX plan early and hard. And we were obviously super successful on that one. But we've had a few more exits since then that follow that similar path where we really see we can drive the best results in the first two, three years. We have another exit that was just about three years of a whole period. But then we had one that was closer to five and a half years that we had to work through Covid and we were able to really drive great results through Covid. And then we did the hypercharging of growth after Covid and we were able to effectively quadruple EBITDA post Covid and sold that business uh, a couple of years ago for six and a half times our money. So the timeframe where we're making our biggest impact is definitely the first 12 to 24 months. And then the question is, can we keep adding value after that? If not, we should sell the business to an owner that is comfortable growing it at uh, whatever the growth rate is. But if we can't keep adding value, it's probably not the right business for our portfolio.

Speaker B: I do want to have you highlight your advice that you're giving to young professionals. I would imagine, like me, you get tons of young kids, maybe a bunch of Canadians, asking for advice on what to do. Uh, what are you telling those folks if they want to get into private equity investment banking?

Speaker C: I definitely do. And there is a steady stream of young Canadian professionals that seek me out. And I really enjoy it. I probably spend more time than I should on it. Every semester I also go down and spend a day at USC teaching a few classes to some business school students down there called the Life of a Deal, where I really teach them from the beginning to the end of how a deal works. And I give them some of the war stories, which they love. That usually turns into even more mentoring conversations. One of the things I say to people, and I got to be very careful about it because it can be misconstrued. But, uh, probably my favorite quote to my own kids, as well as to any kids in college, is what we do is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. And I say that and I don't want people to take away that it's, oh, it's just a grind or you got to work really hard. That's not what I mean. The inspiration part of what we do and the coming up with ideas is super important. And you can do very well in your career if you have great ideas, but the execution of those ideas is really where the rubber meets the road and where it matters. And for me, that 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration really means that once we have the idea, once we, we all agree on what it is to go forward, the real work is rolling up your sleeves and making it happen. Coming up with ideas and sitting back and watching other people go and execute, that's just not as interesting or as fun to me. So what my advice to young professionals is lean in and lean in hard. It's take on that extra deal. It's do whatever you can to be impactful on the organization that you're working for, whether it's in banking or private equity or consulting or corporate, corporate or marketing, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, as a young professional, you want to be seen as someone that people around you can rely upon. And again, back to. If you have the best ideas, that's one way to do it. And for sure, you can have a long career having Great ideas. But early in your career, the most impactful best way for people to really see your value add is that willingness to lean in and work hard and be part of the team and be part of the execution team that really is making it happen.

Speaker B: I, um, really think that's amazing advice. And I would add that most people who have great ideas but haven't been through the trenches don't really understand what a good idea is. And the best ideas come from people who've experienced things and then identify an opportunity to solve the problem.

Speaker C: Some of this is the advice I give to m my own kids is exactly that, which is, I don't want to be the one that pours cold water on a young adult that does have great ideas, because, again, there is space and there's opportunity for that. But listening and learning to be part of a team and how to go and play your role on that team, whether it's a leader one day or a follower the next, is hugely important in those early stages of your career. I got lucky. I joined a firm in DLJ in 1998, that whether you wanted to or not, you were going to learn this stuff just by sheer volume. It was a lot back in those days, but I had an amazing group of people around me, both at the senior levels, who I'm still very close friends with, many of them today, as well as all of the people that were in the bullpen with me back then. We all recognized what we were doing, that it was important for our clients, the work that we were doing. And it was exhilarating, uh, to be part of a team that could go and execute and really drive the results that we were driving. So my advice is to lean in hard and don't shy away from being part of the team and doing the hard work that it takes to do it.

Speaker B: I know we've been talking about this for a little bit, but I also wanted to have you respond to something because it's relevant. I hear a lot of kids stressing in college about trying to find their job that they're going to have forever, and they just get so manic about it. And you're a great example of somebody whose career meandered with purpose, but it gave you a lot of different experiences. And your first job out of college was not what you're doing now. Can you talk about how you're advising kids in that bucket?

Speaker C: Yeah. And it even goes before college. To be honest, I think when I was coming out of school, it was a very narrow group of schools that we would recruit from today, that group of schools has massively expanded. We as an industry have realized that there is talented people at schools all across the country, not just the four schools that we deemed the investment banking schools back in the 90s. And while those schools are still great and we still recruit a lot of people from those schools, there is a long list of schools that I tell people even coming out of high school that even if you don't land at, uh, one of those premier top tier target schools for investment banking, there is opportunity, lots of opportunity to get into finance and banking and private equity. It just again, takes real desire and hard work. Once they're in college and once they're looking at opportunities. Yeah, the really neat thing I think about college is to find your place and to really start to see where the opportunities are and where you fit best. And that can change. I see people every day who started a career in one spot, either went back to do their MBA or didn't, but have changed their careers and now they're super successful. They bring a lot of depth and value to what we do, and it's really great. And whether it's an industry or just a perspective in general, I think it's great when people have various types of backgrounds.

Speaker B: So we've already had a bunch of quotes come out throughout the podcast so far. Any others that you share with your family or your team that you want to share?

Speaker C: The last one I will give you. It's really a, uh, YouTube clip that I send to my kids and really to myself as a reminder. It's a great Nick Saban video from probably 10 plus years ago where he's standing at a podium and with that Nick Saban way, he just sort of looks at the reporters out there and said as he was talking to his kids, it takes what it takes. And I'm a big believer in that. I believe that in my career, I believe that in doing deals. I believe that in my endeavors outside of work, whether it's golfing or other sports or endeavors, I take on, it takes what it takes. And that from a deal perspective and from a gallant perspective, I think the way that shows itself up is I tell a lot of advisors and certainly our own team knows this. One thing that you'll find with Gallen is we never get deal fatigue. If we can get a deal done in a month, great. We'll put our heads down and we'll grind and we'll get a deal done in a month. If it takes nine months, like a few of our Deals have taken to get done. It takes nine months. It takes what it takes. I'm comfortable sitting in that and taking the time and the energy to really get to the best possible results. But that YouTube clip has been sent to my kids, uh, probably a dozen times over the last few years. And I think, again, it's just as much of a reminder to myself as it is to them that we've got to sometimes just put our head down and drive forward.

Speaker B: You sound so much like me. I send so many quotes and videos to my family, and it's fun. In fact, so much so that on one of my birthdays, my daughter wrote on my birthday poster that they make, dad, do you remember quote of the day, driving me to school in seventh and eighth grade.

Speaker C: That's awesome. That's better, I think. I recently said my kids are getting older and more mature and thoughtful, so I trust that now they open or read at least half of the quotes or videos I send them. I think that there was a time there where things that I was saying were left unread, as they say, and that hopefully with them has changed over the years. But, yeah, listen, I. I look for inspiration and ways to motivate myself and my team from all different areas and think that whether it's a quote or a perspective from somebody who's been there and done that, it's hard to ignore that. Right. So for me, they may come off as a little cheesy to my kids sometimes, but it's a way to really cement something in that I truly believe and truly want to live my life by.

Speaker B: You'll know you've done your job when they start sending things back to you, and that's what's fun. Anthony, this has been such a great podcast, and I think our audience is very much going to enjoy it. And I want to ask you my closing question, which is if I'm a management team founder, multi generational owner of a business, and I'm trying to decide what private equity firm to partner with, what are the key things you want me to remember tonight as I'm sitting with my spouse or my team, trying to decide who to go with, what are those things that you want me to remember that'll tip me your way?

Speaker C: You just hit on the key word, which is partner. We don't buy businesses. We partner with founders in when we're doing those types of deals to really look for ways to give them the tools they need to be successful. In those instances, you're likely going to be rolling over a significant amount to partner with us. And, and we want them to know that our expectation is they're going to make just as much or uh, more on their rollover as they're making in this part of the deal. And we want them to have confidence that we are the right partner to help them supercharge growth first and foremost. In addition to the operational know how they know they're going to have a friend and someone who's been in the trenches and who's seen it and done it a number of times and that's our pitch, is that we simply are going to give them the tools and the resources to go and achieve the success that they believe they can do. And we obviously do too. We view ourselves as a tier one partner in those situations. And if they're looking for a partner then that's great. Some guys aren't. Some people just want a bag full of cash that they can sell their business. God bless them. That's not for us. We're looking for true people partners. We'll get shoulder to shoulder with them and drive their business hopefully to new heights, into new levels that they've never seen again.

Speaker B: I really appreciate it and I think you and your firm are very much the passionate partner that I would want to have if I was a seller. So very much appreciate your time and look forward to watching your continued success.

Speaker C: I really appreciate you taking the time, Jeff, and congrats on um, this podcast and the success you've had with it.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us for Northstar's Private Equity Fast Pitch. For more information about Fast Pitch or our boutique private equity Heavy hitter events, you can Visit us@enorthstar.com Mhm. Sam,