May 2018 Newsletter

Local Mergers and Acquisitions

Early last month, there was a good piece in the Orlando Business Journal about the recent M&A activity in Central Florida and the complexities that go into those types of transactions.

More insightful, though, than the various structures and unique terms a given deal may include was the psychological toll that the sale of a business can take on its owners — especially when those folks are the people (or are related to the people) who started the business.For many business owners, their identity, time, and much of their wealth and livelihood is tied up in their business.

The Conway Center for Family Business estimates that the average lifespan of a family-owned business is 24 years. For most of us, that represents roughly a third of our lifetime. So it’s no wonder that the idea of transitioning away from a family built business comes with a boatload of stress. You worry about your employees and your family’s financial and personal future, there’s a lot of emotion involved.

It doesn’t help matters that the due diligence process is often arduous and chalk-full of scrutiny. So why go through the process at all? Why not pass it on to the next generation? Well, according to Bloomberg Business Week only 40% of U.S. family-owned businesses are passed on to the second generation. For third-generation, it’s a meager 13% — and those numbers are trending down. Meanwhile, the number of folks reaching retirement is at an all-time high. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 10,000 baby boomers retire every day; many of them are business owners.

If the most historically common method of business-succession is trending down and more business owners than ever are looking to move towards retirement, how can a business owner plan to move forward? Private Equity and strategic competitors seeking consolidation are becoming the new norms for business owners looking to move on to the next chapter of their lives. One stark proof point: deal activity in U.S.

Private Equity hit new highs in 2017 in both deal count and deal value, and Pitch Book believes a new record could be hit in 2018. Due to low-interest rates and an influx of money into PE funds, there’s more capital than ever that needs to be put to work. How does that affect business owners? Higher valuations! Monetarily, it’s one of the best times ever to be the captain of a profitable private business with your eyes on the exit door.

That doesn’t erase the fact that the sale process comes with the aforementioned challenges. But like all great outcomes, the obstacles are there to be overcome and if you’re working with an experienced team of advisers, it can make the journey much more palatable (and profitable).

 

If you or anyone you know is considering raising growth capital or selling/buying a business, please let us know. We’d love to chat.

 


Portfolio company that just closed out its seed round

 

Rentivity.com

Rentivity, a Florida based real estate technology company, successfully completed a fundraising round with NewGate Capital Partners of an undisclosed amount. Rentivity is launching the first end-to-end digital marketplace for single-family home rentals. Their solution integrates and supports all users (owners, landlords, property managers, tenants, vendors, etc.) in a single, mobile friendly, platform. Rentivity will save time and money for both renters and property owners while providing detailed reporting and a digital audit trail of all transactions.

 

You can visit them and stay up-to-date on their full market launch atrentivity.com.

 


 

Machine-Part Manufacturing Company for Sale

 

Image result for Machine-Part Manufacturing

 

NewGate Capital Partners has recently listed for sale a manufacturing company that is focused on producing machine parts for envelope, plastic bag, and notebook manufacturers. The Company was founded in 2005 and currently employs 11 people.

It is headquartered outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a 10,000 square foot facility and mostly serves clients throughout Pennsylvania. Their niche-focus is a competitive advantage that has resulted in year-over-year sales growth of 13%. They finished the 2017 calendar year with just over $2 million in sales and an adjusted EBITDA of $600k and are expecting similar or better results for 2018.

 

The owner is currently looking to retire but has management in place that can take over post-transition.

The sale of the business includes the land and manufacturing facility.

 


 

 

 

Possible scenario(s) of the future of various industries

Change is inevitable

I imagine some of this will not turn out quite as planned, but it’s interesting to think about, just the same.
In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people won’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.  Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.

In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.  So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses.

Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car.

It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 mi (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million mi (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.

Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can’t last. Technology will take care of that strategy.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it.nIt then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.  Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.  In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.

Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called “moodies” which can already tell what mood you are in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when they are telling the truth and when they are not.

Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency. Of the world.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already sold for $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.? Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this Summer, because I see an enormous potential. We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year. Boom!

 (Author unknown)