Sale of PortCo -- Bankers or in-house?

Not positive, but I believe many firms will do it in house, and charge the company a fee. But if its an IPO, I assume they would hire a bank. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

More often than not, they hire a bank. It is not about the actual sale process, it is about access to buyers.

This sort of surprises me... I expected they would generally hire a bank, due to all the crap work that must be done. I understand hiring a bank for access to buyers, which makes complete sense in an auction process, but what about a targeted sale? In that case, they'll generally run the process themselves?

What about smaller, MM shops -- shops with less than 15 people. What will generally happen in that situation?

The majority of PE shops use an outside banker despite the fact that the entire process could be managed internally. In many cases, the bankers get in the way (no offense) as the sponsor, management team and legal team draft the appropriate documents (i.e. prospectus, fin. statements, etc.). At the end of the day an investment bank is nothing more than a rolodex. With that said, bankers do add value when it comes to organizational issues (data site, bidding, process status, etc.) and identifying prospective buyers.

We hire investment banks, unless we're holding side conversations with the most logical strategic buyers. It's nice because I'm so sick of writing offering memorandums that I would go insane if I had to write even one more. Having the bankers do all the heavy lifting is much easier.