Views From the Market
Stikeman Elliott
Stikeman Elliott provides creative Canadian legal services to clients around the world.
In this series of 15-minute podcasts on private equity and midmarket M&A, with a focus on Canada, a wide range of industry participants discuss the deal market trends that they’ve been seeing. The host and originator of the series is Mario Nigro, M&A partner at Stikeman Elliott in Toronto.
Read more about Mario Nigro: https://bit.ly/3IkJsPJ
🔗 To stay connected and receive the latest updates, subscribe to our podcast on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts
🔗 Follow Stikeman Elliott on LinkedIn for more insights
🔗 For more information and resources, visit stikeman.com/viewsfromthemarket
In this series of 15-minute podcasts on private equity and midmarket M&A, with a focus on Canada, a wide range of industry participants discuss the deal market trends that they’ve been seeing. The host and originator of the series is Mario Nigro, M&A partner at Stikeman Elliott in Toronto.
Read more about Mario Nigro: https://bit.ly/3IkJsPJ
🔗 To stay connected and receive the latest updates, subscribe to our podcast on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts
🔗 Follow Stikeman Elliott on LinkedIn for more insights
🔗 For more information and resources, visit stikeman.com/viewsfromthemarket
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 6, 2023 • 16min
Episode 77 – Time to Sell: A Lifelong Entrepreneur Reflects on Her M&A Experience
In this podcast, Mario speaks with Sabine Veit about selling the frozen bread business she had built from scratch over three decades. The success of the business, which required infusions of capital as it grew, led to the realization that it was time to sell, and Sabine notes the critical importance of specialized advisors in what was to her the very unfamiliar world of M&A. By selling well before retirement age, Sabine has been able to move on to a new venture that has rekindled her entrepreneurial spirit.
Mar 29, 2023 • 18min
Episode 76 – Canadian Companies in the World: The View from Ottawa
This week’s podcast looks at the potential of Canada’s corporate midmarket from the perspective of government. Mario’s guest, the Hon. Mary Ng, is Canada’s Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development. Minister Ng and Mario speak about federal programs to help businesses expand internationally, initiatives that promote women entrepreneurs, opportunities surrounding the transition to the green economy and our trading relationships with the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Mar 23, 2023 • 21min
Episode 75: Insights of a Global Search Fund Veteran
This edition of the podcast features Vancouver-based Jan Simon, co-founder and managing partner of Vonzeo Capital, an international search fund investor. With a background as an investment banker and academic, Jan was involved in some of the earliest searches outside the U.S. and has been a key player in the industry’s rapid growth. Among other insights, he notes the importance of board guidance as successful searchers transition to CEO roles and discusses some of the challenges specific to self-funded searches. Looking ahead, he suggests that search funds may have advantages in challenging economic times and forecasts continued growth for the search fund model.
Mar 16, 2023 • 17min
Episode 74 – Current Market Challenges: Thoughts from a Restructuring Expert
Today’s guest, Michelle Pickett, is a PwC partner in Toronto with a restructuring focus. She and Mario discuss the challenges facing companies in the current market environment, from overbought inventory to rapidly rising debt service costs. Avoiding a full-scale restructuring often depends on a company’s commitment to addressing issues of this type as soon as they appear, before major liquidity problems emerge. Finally, while Michelle is already noticing a rise in distressed M&A, investors do not appear to be losing interest in good midmarket opportunities.
Mar 9, 2023 • 23min
Episode 73 – Growth Equity: What U.S. Capital Sees in Canada
Mario is joined today by Leon Chen and Rob Shilton, members of Kayne’s Los Angeles office. Rob and Leon, whose special focus is on growth equity for tech and tech-enabled businesses, describe the efficiency and resilience that are characteristic of the Canadian companies that make up a large part of their portfolio. They and Mario also discuss the market’s recent shift away from “grow at all costs” to a profitability focus and the opportunities that are emerging as we move into 2023.
Mar 2, 2023 • 17min
Episode 72 – Patience: One of the Keys to Search Fund Success
Today’s podcast guest is Yas Ali, CEO of Ontario Home Health, a provider of medical devices that allow those with chronic illnesses to live comfortably at home. After deciding that he wanted to own his own business, Yas entered into a self-funded search process, casting his net wide and looking at hundreds of possibilities before discovering Ontario Home Health. He and host Mario Nigro discuss his diligent and patient search and how search funds are creating a bright future for midmarket M&A in Canada.
Feb 23, 2023 • 21min
Episode 71 – Selling to Private Equity: Once the Exception, Now the Rule
Mario’s guest in this podcast is Brian Faughnan of Osprey Capital, a leading sell-side advisor in the Canadian midmarket. The focus of their discussion is the growing presence and acceptance of private equity buyers in Canada over the past 10-15 years. In Brian’s experience, private equity firms, which in the midmarket still tend to be U.S.-based, now often comprise 80-90% of the buyer pool. As many of the firms strongly prefer ongoing co-ownership, sellers are now able to look at private equity investment as a growth strategy as much as an exit strategy.
Feb 16, 2023 • 19min
Episode 70 – Cardata: A Search Fund Success Story
Sheret Ross and Michael Levine of Cardata join Mario to discuss their journey from MBA students to searchers to successful entrepreneurs. A diligent and proactive search process led Sheret and Michael to Cardata, a business with an efficient solution for companies that reimburse employees for personal vehicle use. They discuss how they built upon Cardata’s existing strengths by expanding its market and focusing its messaging and look ahead to the challenges of a changing economic environment.
Feb 9, 2023 • 16min
Episode 69 – The Resilience of Midmarket M&A: A Banker’s Perspective
Michael Denham of National Bank joins Mario in this edition of the podcast to discuss the current state of M&A activity in Canada. The midmarket continues to be busy in 2023, as companies look for productivity-enhancing acquisitions that will enable them to thrive in the post-pandemic world. At the same time, labour shortages continue to pose challenges and may play a part in driving up interest rates later this year, although Michael is hopeful that rate stability and stronger growth will return in 2024.
Feb 2, 2023 • 20min
Episode 68 – More Than Food and Fashion: Canadian-Italian Trade Offers Opportunities in Many Sectors
Mario’s special guest on this podcast, Corrado Paina, has promoted Canadian-Italian trade for many years as Executive Director of the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Ontario. He and Mario look at how free trade has enhanced the ability of small and mid-sized Canadian and Italian companies, from a wide variety of sectors, to access each other’s markets.
