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Hadley Capital Completes $50 Million Fundraise for Fund IV
By: Paul Wormley
Originator of Small Company Private Equity Hits Hard Cap for Fund IV Chicago, IL and Nashville, TN, November 30, 2023 – Hadley Capital, a…
Hadley Completes Successful Sale of GT Golf Holdings
By: Paul Wormley
GT Golf Seeks Continued Growth Under New Ownership GT Golf Holdings, Inc. (“GT Golf”) recently announced that the company was acquired by…
Centare Sold to Leading Onshore Development Organization
By: Paul Wormley
After nearly nine years of successful ownership, we are pleased to announce that Centare was acquired by Rural Sourcing lnc., a leader in…
Insights on Management Buyouts for Small Businesses
By: Harrison Menaker
Throughout the life cycle of a business, ownership’s goals change on both an individual and company-wide level. After dedicating themselves…
Cash Flow: What Does it Mean for Your Business?
By: Harrison Menaker
Do you struggle to balance your business expenses and cash every month? Do your monthly expenses outweigh the cash your business brings in…
Purchase Price Allocation in Small Company Acquisitions
By: Ryan Hanley
In the sale of a small company, the allocation of purchase price for tax purposes creates important considerations for sellers and it is…
What Every Business Owner Needs To Know About Senior Debt
By: Scott Dickes
Senior debt, also commonly called a senior term loan, is a loan received from a traditional commercial bank that has a specified repayment…
Enterprise Value vs. Equity Value: Everything You Need to Know
By: Paul Wormley
Enterprise value is the value of a company that is available to all of its debt and equity holders while equity value is the portion of…
What are Indemnification Baskets and Caps in M&A?
By: Paul Wormley
Baskets and caps establish limits on the amount a buyer can claim against a seller for certain claims of indemnification. An…
Asset-Based Valuations: Benefits and Pitfalls
By: Paul Wormley
Asset-Based valuations are a form of business valuation that is centered on the value of a company’s assets. Asset-Based valuations are most…
Full EBITDA Guide: What is It & How Investors Use It (Formula)
By: Paul Wormley
Simply put, EBITDA = a company’s Earnings (net income on its income statement) + any Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and/or Amortization also…
What are Fundless Sponsors? [FAQ + Guide]
By: Clay Brock
Private equity funds are pooled investment vehicles that are raised from a group of sophisticated investors to pursue a specific investment…
The Guide to Exit Strategy for Small Business Owners
By: Sean Fegan
Following the recent adversity felt by small businesses across the country, we are hearing from a lot of business owners regarding the…
Seller Notes: What Are They Are and How They Work
By: Fitz Dickes
What is a Seller Note? A seller note, also commonly known as seller paper and seller debt, is a form of financing used in small company sale…
How To Calculate a Customer’s Lifetime Value [Ultimate Guide]
By: Scott Dickes
Customer Lifetime Value Definition: Customer Lifetime Value is the present value of the future cash flow contribution from a single customer…
Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Models Overview
By: Paul Wormley
Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA) is the path to becoming an entrepreneur by buying and growing an established small business. For…
Private Equity vs Venture Capital: What’s the Difference?
By: Clay Brock
The difference between private equity and venture capital can seem confusing but is actually fairly straightforward: Private equity…
EBITDA Margins: What Every Small Company Owner Needs to Know
By: Clay Brock
EBITDA margin is a popular term but it can't be found on any financial statement. It has to be calculated and is a great way for owners to…
Business Succession Planning in the Era of Baby Boomer Retirement
By: Paul Wormley
Business Succession Planning has always been a process that requires careful consideration and research prior to implementation. This is…
How to Sell A Small Business With or Without a Broker (Advice for 2021)
By: Paul Wormley
When the time comes to sell a small business, small business owners may engage a business broker to sell their business much like a…
COVID-19 Small Business Relief Checklist [January 2021 Update]
By: George Malone
Like most small businesses in the US, Hadley Capital and its portfolio of small businesses faced unprecedented challenges resulting from the…
EBITDAC = EBITDA in COVID Times
By: Paul Wormley
In the early days of COVID-19 my brother texted me a photo of a coffee cup with the acronym “EBITDAC” printed across the front. We shared a…
Hadley Capital Acquires Equustock
By: Paul Wormley
Hadley Capital recently acquired Equustock, a manufacturer of premium animal bedding and litter products, predominantly horse bedding…
Hadley Capital Opens Satellite Office in Dallas, TX
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital recently opened a satellite office located in the Turtle Creek neighborhood. While all Hadley Capital employees will…
Hadley Capital Acquires New Age Cryo, Inc.
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital recently acquired New Age Cryo, Inc., a fast-growing provider of industrial cleaning services based in Northern Illinois…
Hadley Capital and Gillinder Family Recapitalize Gillinder Glass
By: Scott Dickes
Gillinder Glass, a sixth-generation custom glass manufacturer, and Hadley Capital, a Chicago-based investment company, are partnering to…
Hadley Capital Acquires Pneumatic Conveying, Inc.
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital recently acquired Pneumatic Conveying, Inc., a manufacturer of turnkey and custom pneumatic conveying systems. Hadley…
Hadley Capital Raises Third Small Company Fund
By: Paul Wormley
Earlier this year Hadley Capital announced the closing of our third small company fund. For nearly 20 years, we have focused exclusively on…
Hadley Capital Acquires GT Golf Supplies
By: Paul Wormley
Hadley Capital recently acquired GT Golf Supplies in partnership with its founder, Craig Pollard, and the company's management team. Craig…
Acquisition Profile & Value Added Distributor
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital is working with an experienced executive to identify and acquire value added distributors with the following characteristics…
Guide to Mezzanine Debt & Financing (With Examples)
By: Scott Dickes
My last post on acquisition financing covered senior debt. This post will cover Mezzanine debt. Specifically, I’m going to talk about: What…
Financial Reporting Requirements in Small Company Acquisition
By: Scott Dickes
Small business owners are often apprehensive about the changes that may occur when their business is acquired by a private equity firm…
Salary Versus Draw and the Impacts on Small Company Valuation
By: Scott Dickes
Earlier this week, I had a long conversation with an owner of a small business regarding his annual draw and how this draw, unlike a salary…
Hadley Capital Sells JRI Holdings
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital is pleased to announce that it sold JRI Holdings in April 2015. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. JRI Industries…
Hadley Capital Supports Management Buyout of Centare Group
By: Paul Wormley
In late August, Hadley Capital and the management team of Centare partnered up to acquire the assets and business of Centare Group from its…
Additional Benefits of Leverage
By: Scott Dickes
In our previous post we outlined how using debt in a transaction is often maligned by the media and gave one benefit of leverage. Here we…
The Benefits of Leverage
By: Scott Dickes
Using debt (borrowing) to finance a leveraged buy-out is often maligned by the media or politicians and frequently positioned as risky…
Investing in Existing Portfolio Companies
By: Scott Dickes
Business investment can take many forms. Hiring or upgrading personnel, purchasing additional equipment, expanding IT systems, etc. Each…
Is It Time to Sell Your Business?
By: Scott Dickes
We often talk with small business owners who are struggling with the decision of selling their business. It is a very difficult and…
The Importance of a Finance Team in Small Business
By: Scott Dickes
Privcap recently released a video of private equity professionals discussing the importance of having good finance talent within portfolio…
Hadley Capital Acquires W.C. Rouse & Son
By: Scott Dickes
We are pleased to announce the acquisition of W.C Rouse & Son. W.C Rouse is based in North Carolina and is the southeast's leading provider…
What is Depreciation Recapture?
By: Paul Wormley
Yesterday I got the email below from a good friend who is considering selling his small business and is concerned about the potential tax…
Open Sky Media Acquires Gulfshore Life Magazine
By: Paul Wormley
Open Sky Media, a Hadley Capital portfolio company, recently acquired Gulfshore Life Magazine, the premier lifestyle magazine serving the…
How the Lehman Fee Structure Works (Example)
By: Scott Dickes
We recently got an email from a business broker asking us what type of finders fee structure we typically use. Our standard finder's fee…
How to Use Data to Manage a Small Business
By: Scott Dickes
The title of this blog post is most commonly attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker. I saw it again recently in a venture capitalist's…
Selling to a Private Equity Firm
By: Paul Wormley
Brent Earles, an advisor for small company M&A at Allegiance Capital recently wrote an article in President & CEO Magazine about selling a…
Hadley Capital Acquires StorFlex
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital has completed the acquisition of StorFlex Fixture Corporation. We are excited for Storflex to join the Hadley family and look…
How to Keep Up With Demand: Customer vs. Skill Demand
By: Scott Dickes
One problem we often hear from small business owners is "I'm having trouble keeping up with demand". The business owner is typically talking…
Improving Small Businesses
By: Paul Wormley
This week's issue of BusinessWeek has a good article about how Monomoy Capital Partners, a private equity firm, uses operational…
The Importance of Managing Working Capital in Small Business
By: Paul Wormley
Working capital is the short term liquidity (read: cash) required to operate a business. Working capital is defined as Current Assets…
Should Your Company Do An ESOP or Sell?
By: Paul Wormley
Over the years we have evaluated a number of small company acquisitions where the target company was deciding between doing an ESOP or…
Assisting Family Businesses in Generational Transitions
By: Paul Wormley
We have worked with a number of families to pass a family business from the first generation to the second generation. In each case, the…
The 45/70 Rule in Small Company M&A - Revised and Updated
By: Scott Dickes
75 is the new 70. The basic tenants of this blog post from 2012 remain - is the owner a sincere seller? But, as the baby boomers age, and…
Exclusivity in Small Company M&A Transactions
By: Paul Wormley
I spent an hour on the phone today explaining to a small business owner why it is important to a buyer to receive a period of exclusivity…
What is a Recapitalization?
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital has had a lot of success acquiring small businesses in recapitalization transactions. In a recapitalization, the selling…
Hadley Capital Sells Portfolio Company to Public Company
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital portfolio company, Kelatron Corporation, a leading provider of bioactive mineral nutrients, has been acquired by Innophos…
Small Company M&A Due Diligence & We're Sellers, Too!
By: Scott Dickes
Before Hadley Capital invests in a company we conduct due diligence. We seek to learn as much as we can about the business to avoid…
Networking with Small Company Intermediaries
By: Paul Wormley
A couple weeks back I was in Richmond, VA to attend the local Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Capital Connection conference and last…
Managing Service Providers in Small Company M&A
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital relies on various service providers to help us do our jobs – attorneys, accountants, environmental consultants, etc. We have…
Non-Compete Agreements in Small Company M&A
By: Paul Wormley
Non-compete agreements are a standard part of the small company sale process. Buyers need to be assured that sellers (and their key managers…
Anatomy of a Small Company Recapitalization
By: Paul Wormley
I spent today in Minneapolis talking to a couple of business partners in their late-50's. They had two competing goals: (1) decreasing…
Private Equity Finder's Fee Agreement: What is it and Do You Need it
By: Paul Wormley
What is a Finder’s Fee? A finder's fee is compensation paid to an individual or firm (often called an intermediary) for a referral or…
Evaluating Leadership Transition Risk
By: Paul Wormley
In light of Steve Job's resignation from Apple, I thought it would be a good time to write about how Hadley Capital evaluates leadership…
Partnering with Executives to Buy a Small Company
By: Paul Wormley
Earlier this week, I got a call from a successful former executive that I've known for awhile (let's call him Jim). Jim called to discuss…
Using Earnouts in Small Company Acquisitions
By: Scott Dickes
Barbara Taylor, a business broker and NY Times blogger, wrote a good post yesterday that describes how a well structured earnout can be a…
Baby Boomers and Small Business M&A
By: Clay Brock
About 79 million Americans make up the Baby Boom generation. This generation has presided over a period of tremendous economic growth, so…
Hadley Capital Acquires International Specialty Supply
By: Scott Dickes
Hadley Capital, in partnership with Bob Rust, is pleased to announce a management buyout of International Specialty Supply (ISS). ISS is a…
Inventory Not Sold Separately
By: Paul Wormley
I spent some time today explaining to an entrepreneur why inventory is not sold separately in the sale of a small business. His proposal…
Preparing to Raise Capital or Sell a Small Business
By: Clay Brock
If you are considering raising capital or selling your company, here are a few of the items you should consider having on hand; they will be…
Operating Without Personal Guarantees
By: Clay Brock
Business owners often tell us that one of the reasons they want to do a transaction is to avoid having personally guaranteed bank debt. We…
What is Private Equity?
By: Paul Wormley
We frequently meet with small business owners who aren't familiar with private equity – how it works or why a private equity firm would be…
When to Let Go: Keeping vs. Selling a Company - Part 3
By: Scott Dickes
The same intermediary who introduced the box game I described in my last post also referred me Jason Cohen's blog on the topic. Cohen sold…
When to Let Go: Keeping vs. Selling a Company - Part 2
By: Scott Dickes
A few weeks ago I blogged about a business owner who said he'd prefer to keep his company another 5 years rather than sell it today. Well…
The Importance of Tax Return Due Diligence
By: Scott Dickes
A business owner recently asked me, "Why do you need to meet with my accountant and review the tax returns?" It's a good question. Why…
Private Equity Fund vs. Fundless Sponsor
By: Clay Brock
There are generally two types of buyers for small companies: Strategic buyers (like a larger competitor) and financial buyers (like Hadley…
Small Business Private Equity - 'First, Do No Harm'
By: Paul Wormley
This week I was having BBQ and beers with a successful small business owner who wanted to learn more about our ‘first, do no harm' approach…
When to Let Go: Keeping vs. Selling a Company - Part 1
By: Scott Dickes
I recently heard these words from a business owner in his early 70's. This is not unusual. Of the 25 – 30 business we seriously pursue in…
Working Capital Adjustments: 4 Common Questions Answered
By: Paul Wormley
Working Capital Adjustments are purchase price adjustments in small business acquisitions. They are often a source of confusion in the sale…
What Is the Difference Between an Asset Sale and a Stock Sale?
By: Paul Wormley
In Part I of the Anatomy of a Letter of Intent post I suggested that a buyer benefits from buying assets versus buying stock in the…
Incentive Program Structure for Interest Alignment
By: Paul Wormley
In an earlier post I wrote about how the partners at Hadley Capital eat our own cooking. The investors in our funds appreciate this…
Private Equity Buyers: Think and Act as An Owner
By: Paul Wormley
My partners and I think and act like owners because we are owners. As a group, the three of us are the second largest investor in our…
Anatomy of a Letter of Intent Part I
By: Paul Wormley
Most small business owners only sell a company once so the process of selling a company can be opaque & to put it kindly. One of the most…
Anatomy of a Letter of Intent Part II
By: Paul Wormley
In the first post on the Anatomy of a Letter of Intent we covered the form of the transaction, how a seller is paid and what a buyer buys…
What Makes a Good Acquisition Candidate?
By: Paul Wormley
My partners and I are frequently asked this question by small business owners and their advisors. In most cases, they are looking for a…