Sean Mooney

DIVE BLOG 

Insights from the world of private equity, strategic consulting, and business intelligence.

Top 8 Best Practices for Preparing for a Value Maximizing Sale

In today’s competitive markets, private equity companies and their partners are being forced to pay record-high prices for investments in companies. To generate attractive returns, the private equity companies and their managers must create substantial value after closing. One effective way to create value is by running a highly prepared, efficient, and focused sales process. Here are eight best practices for preparing a company for a value-maximizing sale: Run fast Time is the enemy of any...
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Private Equity Firms, Prep For Sale, Deal Teams

Insights from LaSalle Capital's Kelly Cornelis on Private Equity Trends

As the daughter of a retired sportscaster, Kelly Cornelis had little knowledge of the finance world growing up on the outskirts of Chicago. She entered college at Notre Dame as an English major and stayed there until her sophomore year—when one of her professors noticed her proclivity for math and suggested she enroll in some business courses. “I was immediately drawn to the analytical aspects of finance,” she recalls. This led her to an investment management class, where she had the...
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Private Equity Firms, Operations

April 2021 Roundup: BluWave Private Equity Client Insights

BluWave works with over 500 private equity funds from around the globe, connecting them with pre-vetted, best-in-class, interim executives and small groups across a variety of resource and functional areas. From information technology and manufacturing to healthcare and consumer goods, our clients are paving the way for “Industry 4.0.” In other words, they have their heads in the game and their hands on the pulse of news you can use. Check out the latest, curated collection of reports,...
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Private Equity Firms

Building Resilience: Strategies for Thriving in Changing Times

Do you have a resilient company? Does it navigate shifting tides easily, or do your leaders and teams struggle with every minor disruption? What makes certain people better equipped to roll with the punches? According to bestselling author and ADP Researcher Marcus Buckingham: “people don’t fear change, they fear the unknown.” To use a timely example, if your company is attempting to rush back to “normal” (going into a physical office, business travel, etc.) he suggests having a concrete plan...
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Private Equity Firms, Portfolio CEOs

Inside MiddleGround Capital: Lauren Mulholland on Private Equity Innovation

What happens when a former New York investment banker and mother of two young children (with a third not far behind) decides to take a “measured risk?” First, she teams up with long-time colleagues John Stewart (no, not this one, this one) and Scot Duncan in Lexington, Kentucky; next, together they decide to build a franchise focused squarely on the middle market; and, certainly not last, in under three years they grow their private equity firm to a team of nearly 40 individuals, raise capital...
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Private Equity Firms

5 Simple Hacks to Balance Personal and Professional Life

One of the silver linings of 2020 was my increased focus on (and confidence in) protecting my time. Spare moments were few and far between, as I, like so many parents in similar circumstances, attempted to walk the fine virtual line between my personal and professional life. A few weeks ago, BluWave spoke with a group of women in private equity to “knowledge share” and provide a space of support as we continue to navigate the “next normal.” While the conversation was filled with enlightening...
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How to thrive with your lenders in 2021

As we roll up our sleeves and move full steam ahead into 2021, it is clear that many of the challenges of last year linger. In fact, many companies—particularly in the travel and hospitality sectors—still face unprecedented circumstances and continue to scramble from one problem to the next. This can often mean losing sight of long-term goals, and when it comes to your lenders and liquidity can quickly lead to major, even irrevocable, problems. This is why companies should continue to...
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Private Equity Firms

With the long view, PE firms make steady partners through the ups and downs

When people think of the private equity (PE) industry, they often picture big Wall Street firms launching headline-grabbing takeovers of multi-billion-dollar companies. But this is a caricatured version of what PE firms actually do: forge long-term relationships with companies of all sizes across industries to help them scale and build value sustainably. In fact, according to the American Investment Council (AIC) more than 30,000 American companies (which employ 8.8 million workers and account...
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Private Equity Firms

An interview with Blackstone Growth’s Ann Chung

It’s not every day you land a job with one of the world’s leading investment firms ($571 billion in assets under management), then one month later find yourself amidst a global pandemic—just as you’re getting acclimated. Enter Ann (Kim) Chung. In February 2020, Blackstone made this announcement welcoming her as a core part of their nascent endeavor, Blackstone Growth (BXG). As Ann puts it: “We are like a startup. Most of us at BXG are from outside the firm; we are a scrappy, entrepreneurial...
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Private Equity Firms

Hidden Harbor’s Chris Paldino on PE Industry Trends and Strategies

There’s a common misperception that private equity (PE) firms only make investments to maximize short-term profits, but this generally isn’t the case. Many PE firms develop long-term relationships with their portfolio companies (portcos), and the COVID-19 pandemic has been a reminder that these relationships can prove invaluable in times of crisis. Chris Paldino is a Managing Partner of Hidden Harbor Capital Partners, and he has more than two decades of PE experience across predominantly...
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Private Equity Firms

An interview with CapitalSpring’s Richard Fitzgerald

COVID-19 has fundamentally altered the way many businesses operate, and restaurants have been forced to make the most significant changes of all. Richard Fitzgerald is a co-founder and Managing Partner at CapitalSpring, a PE firm dedicated to the restaurant industry (companies in their portfolio include staples like Taco Bell and Dunkin’ Donuts), and he recently shared his insights about how his portfolio companies are responding to the pandemic and what his industry can teach us about...
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Private Equity Firms

An interview with The Halifax Group’s Scott Plumridge

As American companies fight to recover from COVID-19 and the resulting economic downturn, the private equity industry has stepped in to provide capital, expertise, and many other forms of assistance. But how, exactly, are PE firms approaching such an unprecedented situation? What lessons can they teach other companies, including those that aren’t PE-backed? What does the future of the industry look like? Scott Plumridge is a Managing Partner at The Halifax Group, and he recently took some time...
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Private Equity Firms

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