Finding good brokers?

searcher profile

March 26, 2021

by a searcher from Stanford University in Los Angeles, CA, USA

I am brand new to the search fund process and in the learning phase. What are some good resources that dive into how to find good brokers, so I can start building a pipeline and getting some materials in front of me on an ongoing basis?

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commentor profile
Reply by an intermediary
from Western New England College in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
^redacted‌ Jeff... for the last 8 years, I was on the buy-side, where I acquired businesses. Since my investor passed away, while I'm looking for a new spot on a deal team, I am assisting a broker I bought deals from in the past sell one of his listings. Over the years, I actually only used this broker - I found all of my other deals by doing mail outs, calling business owners myself, from colleagues in private equity who passed off-market deals on to me that were too small for them. I usually avoided using brokers because I always hated the BS sales tactics that came along with it - I'm old school where I don't care about professional headshots on a website I'm never going to look at, I don't care about pie charts and graphs making a CIM look pretty, I just want numbers and information to make up my mind whether I'm in or out. I'm the type of person who doesn't need to be sold what if's and hypotheticals, I just need facts to make a decision. There are good and bad in everything, but when I found deals myself, I just found it less aggravating, and I also liked being able to talk to the owners directly. All of that being said, a good broker who can bring you deals before they come to market is worth their weight in gold
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from The University of Chicago in Nashville, TN, USA
I would pick the geography you are looking at, as a lot of brokers at the under $20 million price tend to be regional/focused on one city. For instance, I live in a mid-sized city and there are a few small investment banks that trade in deals of that size, but also individual brokers. The people I have worked with just started calling the brokers with an online presence and asked who else is doing deals in their town.
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