The Leading Edge: M&A Is Back — and It's Changing — Are You Ready? with Kenneth H. Marks, Founder and Managing Partner of High Rock Partners

The pandemic disrupted the business-as-usual model in many sectors, including mergers and acquisitions. As business leaders are emerging from lockdown, so is the market. If M&A is part of your strategy — as a path to growth or as an exit — how should you adjust your thinking as the economy emerges from the pandemic? Kenneth H. Marks talks about this and more as he joins Thomas A. Stewart on The Leading Edge — a place where new ideas emerge and are sharpened, and where leaders look to find the edge that brings success for themselves, their teams, and their enterprises.

According to Kenneth H. Marks, a certified M&A Advisor and co-author of Middle Market M&A, we’re in a potentially hot deal environment where there’s a great deal of capital looking for places to invest as well as some pent-up demand to sell. Nevertheless, the market is still uncertain; valuations are unclear, and trends are hard to read. In this kind of environment, Kenneth says, companies need to understand their personal and corporate objectives — which might not be identical — and be ruthlessly honest about their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In this type of climate, personal and company clarity are more valuable than ever, as personal objectives and company objectives can sometimes diverge. Stay tuned!

Here’s a glimpse of what you will learn:

• Kenneth H. Marks describes the number-one priority companies have for 2021: a return to predictability
• How are companies adjusting their forecasting to account for COVID-19?
• What’s the EBITDAC conversation with investors like right now?
• Determining a business’s worth: extrinsic value versus intrinsic value
• What's happening in the market right now?
• Kenneth outlines the 2x2 matrix he uses to help his clients assess opportunities and make difficult decisions
• A look at the divergence between personal objectives and company objectives — and why age can sometimes play a role
• What’s the biggest quandary that has Kenneth doing his homework and searching for answers?

About Our Guest:

Kenneth H. Marks is the Founder and Managing Partner of High Rock Partners, a boutique firm providing M&A and strategic advisory services to middle-market companies. Prior to founding High Rock Partners, he served as the President of JPS Communications, Inc. Kenneth also founded and grew the engineering and electronic manufacturing company Kenmar Business Groups, Inc., to $22 million in revenue while serving as the President and CEO during the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Kenneth is the co-author of many books, including Middle Market M&A: Handbook for Investment Banking and Business Consulting; The Handbook of Financing Growth: Strategies, Capital Structure, and M&A Transactions; and Value Levers: Increase the Value of Your Business From 3x to 7x. Kenneth is a Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor, has a background in electrical engineering, and holds an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• AchieveNEXT
• Thomas A. Stewart on LinkedIn
• Kenneth H. Marks on LinkedIn
• High Rock Partners
• Middle Market M&A: Handbook for Investment Banking and Business Consulting by Kenneth H. Marks, Robert T. Slee, Christian W. Blees, and Michael R. Nall
• The Handbook of Financing Growth: Strategies, Capital Structure, and M&A Transactions by Kenneth H. Marks, Larry E. Robbins, Gonzalo Fernández, John P. Funkhouser, and D. L. Williams
• Value Levers: Increase the Value of Your Business From 3x to 7x by Kenneth H. Marks and John A. Howard

Sponsor for this episode:

The Leading Edge is brought to you by AchieveNEXT.

AchieveNEXT empowers individuals, teams, and enterprises to meet ambitious growth goals through our powerful combination of peer-to-peer learning and solutions.

We bring together thousands of the top finance and HR leaders from across North America to connect and share business and industry insights through our Alliance Networks.

We empower individuals, teams and enterprises through powerful solutions which include

-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training & Leadership Development

-Business Relationship Training

- and Executive Coaching for individuals and teams.

This powerful combination helps today’s business leaders level up and achieve next-level growth.

Learn more at AchieveNEXT.com.

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