Hey everyone, I have bit of a unique situation that I could use some advice on handling from perhaps the more senior folks on here. For a bit of background, I'm a second year associate at a MM industry boutique that gives a lot of responsibility to juniors and encourages them to step up. As I evaluate long-term career prospects in banking vs. PE / etc, I understand that IB becomes more salesy as you clime up, and I think I have an opportunity to potentially develop a relationship / source a mandate.
Situation:
When back home during the holidays, I was chatting with a family friend who's the COO at a Company in a vertical that we cover well and where I have spent some time. I kept it high-level but probed a bit about the business, its size, growth etc. The size is right in my banks wheelhouse and the business does not have any institutional backing. He asked me a bit about my job, what type of clients we have, and a lot about the PE market for businesses his size. I didn't pounce on this (was few drinks deep at the time) but his questions were very pointed for someone who's been a career-operator. Made me think that his business was potentially exploring a sale / recap.
My question is how do I nurture this relationship and potentially introduce my bank to explore a transaction? I have his contact info so can certainly reach out but want to do it in the correct way and not come across as too pushy, as I have known this family for 15+ years. Maybe its as simple as sending over some off-the-shelf industry materials or forwarding relevant deal announcements as a start? How do I get in front of the rest of the C-Suite? When do I make the intro to more senior folks at my bank?
Thanks a lot for any insight the Community can offer!
Can’t offer a ton if advice but just make sure you are compensated for the relationship/sourcing the deal if a transaction occurs. Need to get it in writing too.
Lol. Let us know how that goes for you
The honest answer is the very second you tell a VP/MD they will do everything possible to "own the account" and be the "relationship manager". I would be extremely conservative with how much you fill in your VP or MD so as not to let this happen early on. Also make sure when you do loop in other team members you CC the right people so no one can later cut you out of the loop and let their boss know about the sweet deal they (you) just sourced. The more you can build rapport with the prospective client the better, you want to be his pointman, not get relegated to backseat analyst while your VP/MD takes a lead on the relationship.
No, don't send any materials. That would be awkward. If you know him well enough, shoot him an email and say you enjoyed the conversation you had and would be interested in grabbing a drink to talk more about the industry since you both work in it. Then when you meet up with him you just have a normal conversation about personal stuff, how the business is doing, what he likes and doesn't like about his job, what's going on in the business (that he's comfortable with), what you've been hearing and reading. Then you weave in the type of stuff you've been doing and ask if they've ever thought about doing any kind of M&A. You feel out the conversation and how it's going and if you think he'd be receptive you ask if he'd be interested in talking further about what type of opportunities you're seeing in the market that may be interesting to them.
At that point you would probably need to let your group know about it, tell them it's not really at a point to bring in anyone else, and ask if you can send some creds / deal announcements / case studies to him.
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