Looking for recommendation | Take Private Deals

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September 20, 2023

by a searcher from ESSEC Business School in Torrance, CA, USA

Hello SF community,

I am looking for recommendations on buyout funds - particularly the ones active in take private space - public to private.
I started my search in Jan this year and I had a deal under LOI that fell through in July. I took a break and came back with a renewed perspective. When I started my search, I was looking at companies with $5mm EBITDA which is on the higher side when it comes to a typical search fund deal. However, I started observing the public market entities - specifically mid-market ($100mm to $$500mm) and I see there are several interesting companies that are currently trading at much lower valuation - and the story is true across multiple companies within the fashion & lifestyle category.

For example - There is an apparel manufacturing company that did $138mm in revenues last year with $32mm in inventory and another $13mm in accounts receivable trading at an enterprise valuation of $40mm. Add equipments & machinery to the mix and long standing B2B customer accounts - we have an interesting deal.

Of course there are multiple reasons why market is valuing this company (and many other similar companies) at such low valuation but there is also an immense opportunity for value creation. Again, we cannot evaluate these deals from Searchfund lens.

There are lot of nuances when it comes to taking a public company private and as much as I am confident of my experience and background as an operator, I am aware of that fact that I clearly lack the skills and deal-making experience required for taking companies private.

I am looking for a mid-market buyout fund that can partner with an operator for these opportunistic public-to-private transactions.
I am also open to the idea of working with someone with fundraising and deal making experience in the mid-market space.

I find Searchfunder community super helpful so that's why I am putting this thought out here first.

Thanks in advance!

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