Celebrating Our First Fifty Years

50th Jubilee Conference Report

In February, CFA celebrated its 50th anniversary at Marco Island along Florida's west coast. The event was attended by leadership from all of the North American offices and representatives from our overseas partners were also in attendance. We celebrated the highly successful first 50 years of CFA, with an eye on the spectacular new tools, members, and markets now within our reach. New client services; additional contacts, tools and techniques for members' use; new marketing materials, trade dress, and corporate strategy.

Continuing Education
Terry Fick, CFA Dallas, led us in a discussion reminding us all of the value we provide our sell side clients with our commitment to in-depth client analysis prior to going to market. Thorough due diligence prior to going to market is good for the seller, the buyer and the deal. The sharing of success stories where the values were achieved and the process went well all had a common theme that thorough research and documentation of valid growth opportunities pays off for both sides. The take-away message is that CFA's process of sharing client prep work and getting input from a broad segment of the CFA team results in invaluable tools that cannot be duplicated by stand alone investment bankers.

Data Rooms
During our recent 50th Jubilee Conference, we examined the use of data rooms as a deal tool that would (i) differentiate CFA from competition, (ii) allow for the timely delivery of deal-critical records and documentation, and (iii) facilitate deal closings. After a presentation by CFA New York on this topic, the founder of DealInteractive demonstrated their easy-to-use electronic data room program, which is now available to CFA clients. We believe that this new tool, implemented at the beginning of each sell-side client assignment, may enable us to complete transactions more quickly than before, at higher prices (it augments the auction process), and with less stress on our clients and other participants.

Panel Discussion
CFA invites eight Private Equity Groups (PEG) to our conferences each year. The primary purpose is to provide an opportunity to get better acquainted with the individual firms and to better understand the client’s criteria for “deals”. Our conferences provide this limited number of Private Equity Group’s the opportunity to get better acquainted with CFA’s investment bankers, our industry breadth and expertise while getting a better understanding of the type of deals that individual offices within CFA handle.

This year, during a 90 minute panel discussion we addressed Market Trends, Best Practices, Deal Flow and Sourcing Processes, as well as “tips” that each of  the Private Equity Group’s had to offer. This helped CFA sharpen its focus on serving our clients better as well as being more effective in completing more deals.

Keynote Speaker

The celebration culminated with a formal dinner followed by an inspirational speech from Roger Aguinaldo, the founder and CEO of the The M&A Advisor – a publication for the middle market.
 

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