When Deals Get Weird: Stories You Don't See in the CIM
Nathan Rust, Lutz Lehmann, Troy Pospisil, Jeremy Segal, Patrick Mumman, Tej Brahmbhatt, George Helock, and Angie Astle
Recorded live at DealMax, this episode collects eight of those moments from across the deal community: corp dev, sell-side advisory, investment banking, and due diligence. The surprises are different in every story. The pattern underneath them is not. Experienced practitioners do not succeed because nothing goes wrong. They succeed because they have seen enough to know which surprises are meaningful and which ones you push through.
These are not cautionary tales. They are what doing deals actually looks like.
What You'll Learn
- How cultural signals in a management presentation can influence a bid decision
- What to do when a buyer dies before close and the sell process has to restart
- How to find data that management says does not exist
- Why a founder hiring an independent valuation firm late in the process is a red flag you should have caught earlier
- What a 12-year seller relationship looks like and what it teaches about patience in outreach
- How to take a bankrupt target through Chapter 11 and still close the deal
- Why experienced advisors document every surprise the moment a deal closes
If you're running deals and want pattern recognition built from thousands of real M&A situations to back your judgment, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, gives you the deal guidance and advisor access to know which surprises you push through and which ones mean walk away.
Salas O'Brien is a national engineering firm founded 50 years ago and structured as a supermajority employee-owned company. Approximately 95% of employees own shares. The firm specializes in engineering across industrial, commercial, and institutional sectors, and has built a disciplined M&A program that has completed more than 30 mergers with no failures and 93% cumulative leadership retention across 15 years.
Magnus Business Group is sell-side M&A advisory firm specializing in representing retiring business owners through the full sale process. The firm focuses on lower middle market transactions where sellers are often going through a business sale for the first time.
Ontra is a 12-year-old technology company serving 1,500 private equity firms and investment banks with automation solutions for M&A processes, including NDA management. Nine of the top 10 private funds asset managers are clients.
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Progress (Nasdaq: PRGS) empowers organizations to achieve transformational success in the face of disruptive change. Progress' software enables customers to develop, deploy and manage responsible, Al-powered applications and experiences with agility and ease. Customers get a trusted provider in Progress, with the products, expertise and vision they need to succeed. Over 4 million developers and technologists at hundreds of thousands of enterprises depend on Progress.
CBIZ is the number eight accounting firm in the United States, with a corporate development team focused on top-of-funnel origination and tuck-in acquisitions across the accounting and professional services sector. The firm reached its current ranking following the acquisition of Marcum.
Watchtower Capital is a boutique investment bank serving privately held companies in the $50 to $100 million range with the process rigor typically reserved for larger transactions. The firm's team has collectively closed over $10 billion in transactions.
Chugach Alaska Corporation is 1 of 13 regional Alaska Native corporations formed under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Structured as a forever corporation designed to generate profits for Alaska Native shareholders across generations, Chugach operates across government contracting and commercial services with over $1 billion in revenue and 5,000 employees.
Nathan Rust
Nathan Rust is Senior VP of Corporate Development at Salas O'Brien, an employee-owned engineering firm with approximately 5,000 employees. Over the past three years, Nathan has led or co-led more than 30 mergers, completed a recapitalization with Blackstone as a minority investor, and refinanced debt multiple times. Before joining Salas O'Brien, Nathan held acquisitions roles in the Phoenix area following an MBA from Virginia Tech and an earlier career running a Harley-Davidson dealership.
Lutz Lehmann
Lutz Lehmann founded Magnus Business Group to represent sellers through business sale processes, primarily baby boomer business owners approaching retirement. He has spent over 10 years managing the surprises that come up in lower middle market transactions, and documents every one of them to prepare his team for the next deal.
Patrick Mumman
Patrick Mumman leads origination at CBIZ (NYSE: CBZ), the number eight accounting firm in the United States following the Marcum acquisition. He previously spent 12 and a half years at H&R Block running a roll-up strategy across small accounting and tax practices, giving him a ground-level view of what selling a business actually feels like for owners who have never done it before.
Jeremy Segal
Jeremy is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Development at Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS). He is a corporate development executive with 20+ years of experience in the technology industry focused on M&A, Corporate Ventures, Strategic Planning, Joint Ventures, Divestitures, International Expansion, and Strategic Partnerships
Tej Brahmbhatt
Tej Brahmbhatt founded Watchtower Capital to bring large-bank M&A process rigor to privately held companies in the $50 to $100 million range. He and his four-person team have collectively closed over $10 billion in transactions and take a KYC (know your client) approach that often surfaces the real transaction a client needs, not the one they came in asking for.
George Helock
George Helock is a managing director at LCG Advisors, a consulting, investment banking, and due diligence firm supporting buyers, sellers, and lenders across the transaction lifecycle. He leads the firm's Western region and has firsthand experience with what happens when capital markets close mid-process on a deal that is already in flight.
Angie Astle
Angie Astle is EVP of Finance, CFO, and president of the investment division at Chugach Alaska Corporation, one of 13 regional Alaska Native corporations formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. She has led the firm's M&A strategy since joining in 1998 and was the architect of their first commercial acquisition, a deal that required becoming the secured creditor and taking a target through Chapter 11 reorganization before it could close.
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