Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Dealmaker Uncut podcast where we speak to some of the UK's most exciting entrepreneurs and hear their investment journeys. We'll discuss the challenges, successes and lessons they've learned along the way with expert deals commentary from Jonathan Boyers, head of Alvarez and Marcel Corporate Finance, and me, Chris McGuire, executive editor at Business Cloud. Welcome everyone to the latest podcast of the Dealmaker Uncut, covered by Alvarez and Marcel. My name is Chris McGuire, I'm the executive editor of Business Cloud and the co host. And as always, I'm joined by the multiple award winning deal maker himself, Jonathan Boyers. Jonathan's been involved in deals totalling 5 billion pounds during his long and illustrious career and he's a Managing director and head of Alvarez and Marcel's corporate finance practice in the uk. You're looking fantastic, Jonathan.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the session today.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: It's been a while. Before we introduce our guest, a quick shout out to those people at what media who produce the Dealmaker Uncut podcast. They're the kings of content creation and we're delighted and very lucky to be working with them. Now, it's fair to say, Jonathan, this podcast has got everyone talking. In the first part of today's show. We're going to be interviewing our very, very special guest, who you're going to introduce in a second. After that we'll have a little break. And in part two, Jonathan will be leaning on his 35 years of working in corporate finance to answer listener questions. You must have started your career very early, Jonathan. That's all I'll say.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Okay, now, Jonathan, let's put the listeners and the viewers because people can watch this as the clips that we put out on social media out of their misery. Who are we speaking to today?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris. So I'm really looking forward to interviewing Dean Ward. So Dean's the founder and Chief Product Officer at Evoke Creative, based in Birkenhead. So they've received two tranches of investment from bgf and Dean's experience, probably the highs and the lows of scaling a business. So I'm really looking forward to hearing about the journey.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Dean was saying this is his first ever podcast, so we know it's going to be the best.
Now that's as high as it goes. Dean, just describe what you do, because the way I describe what you do is probably a bit simple. If you go into McDonald's and you want to use one of those kiosks Where? The self service kiosk. We don't have to go to the front and they give you a number and you wait ages for a cup of tea. You make those kiosks, don't you?
[00:02:21] Speaker C: In Subway, A lot of hospitality and retail brands. I mean, fundamentally, what we do is improve operational efficiency and drive the bottom line. So whether it's in fast food or retail, it's all about serving customers quicker, keeping customers happy. Yeah.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: You've got three kids, haven't you? You know, so. I don't know. I mean, are they still really impressed when you walk in through McDonald's and you say, daddy made that kiosk, do they say, yeah, I'm so proud of you, dad?
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Yeah. To be honest, it's more me taking them in there. So when the first ones went in Subway last year, I took them in, but they weren't too impressed.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: I've got two older kids, they don't get any more impressed as they get older. Dean, look under the bonnet. And Jonathan asked about the deal. Elements of Evoke Creative. It's worth setting the scene. Evoke Creative's story officially began in 2006 when it's changed its name from Rafo Design. You joined the design consultancy element in 2004. It was set up by Neil Clark, Ian Quayle and Graham Boyd. And yourself, you're the only one of the original founders left in the business. There must be a pop group which started off with four members and there's only one left. Who would that be? I mean, you're the pop star, Jonathan, you're the singing fan, member of the original four left.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: I can't. I can't think who you might mean. Obviously take that to get in there.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: But yeah, absolutely, you are the. You are the Jason Orange.
So just you explain what you do.
You count McDonald's, JD Sports and Google among your clients. You're really an 18 year overnight success story. Can you give us a sense of Evoke's scale in terms of turnover and staff numbers now?
[00:03:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, turnover wise, last year was 34 million. We're aiming for 40 this year we've got around 100 staff. And then what we do is we use sort of flexible resource as well. So around about 120 at the moment, including all staff. Yeah.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Impressive.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: So there's a story, Dean, that when you took the order for McDonald's, there were sort of 15 people in the business. This order came in and you just said, okay, yeah, let's do it.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: And I'd love to hear more about what that felt like, what, what went on then?
[00:04:27] Speaker C: It was one of them with McDonald's. We spoke to them about two years previous at a show. They were just wandering around. Then all of a sudden an email comes through and it's like an opportunity in a way.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Two years later.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Yeah, two years later.
And Rennie Basford is the guy. And I remember we met him at show and then it's like we've got this opportunity, you know, we're a small company of like, yeah, 15 staff at the time.
Let's absolutely go for it. It was kind of one of those opportunities where it's, you know, this. You're probably not going to get another one like this again.
And yeah, we blew that socks off. We developed the product, we brought in a lot of efficiencies, a lot of design into the kiosk so that members of staff could swap components. So we looked at the whole product lifecycle and how we could develop something which is going to stand out from all the competitors or other businesses. And yeah, we won that deal. And literally overnight it was like doubling the size, you know, all our systems. I mean, with all that growth, you then need to look at your stock, your ERP systems, like everything, you know, I mean, it's.
You're constantly looking around and going, have we got, you know, the right tools for the growth?
[00:05:38] Speaker A: That sums up entrepreneurship, isn't it? Because you deal with entrepreneurs all the time.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah, we do.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Some people look at that and say, an order for 500 kiosks when I've only got 15 staff, I can't do it. But entrepreneurs, are they risk takers, in your view, Jonathan?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: So it's the right attitude, isn't it? I mean, there's some people worry about being, being too exposed to one customer. What do you do when there's a game changing order comes in?
[00:05:57] Speaker C: Yeah, well, at the time we. I mean, that's kind of been our growth, really. Our first customer back in sort of 2007, 2008, when we first moved into kiosks, we were exposed to that.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: But intelligent, wasn't it?
[00:06:09] Speaker C: Yeah, intelligent. They're based in Stockport now, Bibliotheca. So we've. And we're still working with them today. They're one of our biggest customers. But you're right, they were 100% for a long time until we got, you know, and trying to, as they grew that it's even harder to dilute that percentage. So it's constant, but you've just, you've always got to be aware of it and understand that all your eggs are in one basket and look at ways in which you can diversify and look, you know, try to bring other clients in, but when they're so big, it's much harder to dilute, you know, so.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: There must have been funding capacity constraints arising from that level of rapid growth. Thank you. Just tell us about the first BGF investment.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: Yeah, so I think we kind of used. In the early days we were pretty good from a cash generation perspective. So we grew organically using factoring and sort of invoice finance and facilities like that.
The two of the founding members were retiring, so me and Neil looked at ways in which we could basically buy them out. I suppose we've been speaking to BGF for some time and some other investment companies, so we were aware of them, but we, I think at that time we weren't sure the mechanism to do it.
So yeah, went to market, basically took, took all different investment companies around the business and got some different offers.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: And then how much interest did you get?
[00:07:38] Speaker C: We got offers from everyone we spoke to. Yeah, so I think there was about six or seven. So we use Grant Thornton as advisors and it was like North Edge and all the different companies like that. We chose BGF because they kind of invest in the management. We like their approach fairly hands off. So it's almost like a kind of light touch really. I think what we needed at the time was more to just release the equity of the two founding members and then bring in a little bit of growth capital for the business.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Tell me, how did you feel afterwards when two of your co founders had effectively taken the money off the table and you were left still locked in the business? And how did that feel?
[00:08:17] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, me and Neil kind of set up the way it was structured in the early days where we had the design company and then we had what was Evoke Interactive kiosks. Me and Neil went off and did that business and we were building the kiosks, we were doing procurements, we were doing fighting. So we, we were very much running that side of the business. We then kind of closed down the design side and then Graham and Ian came over. So I think it always been naturally like me and Neil were driving it forward.
So it did leave some gaps from a sort of management perspective. But then we looked at ways in which we could bolster the, bolster the business.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: But there was no resentment that some people have exited and take the money off the table. And you're.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: No, not.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: You're excited about it.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: You Were younger as well, it's fair to say then.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, well, those guys were retiring, so. No, I mean, it was all very amicable. I mean, Graham is great. We still speak mostly on LinkedIn and stuff like that, but. No, no, absolutely not. It was all. It was just a natural progression of the. Really. And it seemed right to, you know, start a new chapter.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Can I ask a question which is aimed at both of you, really? So you won a lot of awards. You put yourself out there to win lots of awards as well. GP Bullhorn have got their Northern Tech awards and you were listed three years on the chart as being one of the fastest 50 growing companies as well. You know, did you make a active play to win lots of awards? And also from Jonathan's perspective, when you're trying to interest investors, does the fact they've won a few awards, if they won a Business Clan award, that would be a game changer, but obviously they, they didn't at the time. But does winning awards and standing out, does that interest investors? Does that get more interest?
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Well, from my point of view, when you're preparing for a fundraise, getting the business's profile appropriately in the market so that people have heard of it is usually a pretty good thing. So one of the most common problems we have when we start working with the business is that they've not got themselves positioned properly, they're not quite well known enough. And so winning awards does give you profile and it starts that PR journey. It can be a bit unrefined if you're not careful, but it's rarely a bad thing.
So I think it helps. But I think the wider pr, it's much more carefully planned, probably the more important bit.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: What was your take on winning those awards?
[00:10:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I think when we got McDonald's we'd just been so head down for years just working on the business and like no one knew who evoke were, you know, I mean, when you talk to people, they're like, you do that product, you do that product. So there was definitely a massive lack in sort of marketing and outward facing sort of PR for the business. So I think we made a real conscious effort to do that. There was, you know, like Telegraph articles and so we worked with influential and they really did raise our profile. We went for lots of awards. Wonder won them and yeah, it did. It kind of. It definitely put us on the map. I think it did it bring in a lot of attention from. I think that's when we first started talking to BGF, when we won the McDonald's deal, we won the Made in the UK awards and things like that so people knew about us, people were reading in like Insider magazine and things like that. So you, you're definitely getting out there and it did it attract you know, attention from investment.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: That's what I can probably comment in terms of PR marketing perspective actually a lot of companies have got a great story but they're so head down building their business they don't think they've got a great story. Equally there are some people who haven't got a great business but think they can spend money on marketing and suddenly they can add next to zero. So the value of the business we're saying influential PR business based in Liverpool as well. A question as well for Jonathan is that Dean mentioned there that I want to call you Dino. I don't know why I just want to call you Dino Dino on your head son.
He mentioned BGF as wanting a hands off investor. What's the reputation for bgf? And presumably not every investor is hands off.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: No, I mean there's a whole range of people. Some, some private equity investors are get really like to get involved in the business.
Most of them like they have opinions and they'll like to share them. They don't, they don't always force their opinions on people but they often do have strong opinions.
BGF are probably at the end of the spectrum where they are investors and they, they do tend to be low profile in the businesses that they're invested in unless they're invited to get involved. So a lot of people choose them because they are sort of hands off investors. Yeah that'd be interesting because you talked about the BGF money buying out some founders but they often put some money in the business as well. I'd be curious whether that happened with you and how you use that money.
[00:13:05] Speaker C: Yeah, we did get some growth capital at the time and it was really just for cash flow more than anything really. I mean because the business has been growing sort of compound growth of over 30% within probably the COVID years for the past 10, 12 years the constant demand for cash is always there so it's more just like working capital that we used it for more recently with the more recent investment that was absolutely because of the opportunities that we had in the US with Burger King and Subway and some big orders that were coming through and it was a case of we've got this opportunity, we need to cash flow it and that's, that's what it's done. I will say what we've recently done more. So is working with BGF and their sort of talent network to, to bring in a more sort of strategic chairman and to work more on the business and be more involved, I think. Because I think that's what we need, we need, we need to bolster the business.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: That's interesting. So another thing that often happens with private equity investments at the same time, a new chairman. ARR. So. And I think you've had, you've had one of a couple of chairmen now. I'd be interested in how that, that's all work.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we had. Mark Mills has been with us since the first investment from BGF and he was great. He had a lot of experience in similar. So Mark had Card Point and ATM businesses previously. Lots of similarities, kind of what we do, you know, metal boxes, cash handling, touch screens and things like that. So we saw a lot of similarities in, in that business and we thought he could add a lot of value to ours. And he'd been great, especially around sort of sales advice and sort of strategic thinking around how we approach the market and how we look at, you know, different sectors and things like that.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Have you met Mark Mills before, Jonathan?
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I know Mark's a larger than life character.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: He is, he is. Did he rock up in his Bentley when he went to his board meetings?
[00:15:02] Speaker C: He did, yeah.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: And he's got. His story is amazing because he went to America and I think about early 2000s and he's with his brother trying to find an idea for a business and he was sitting in a coffee bar and somebody said, hey, why don't you take the concept of coffee bars into England because they're not there. And Mark said, no, coffee will never take off in England. And then you've got Costa and Starbucks. And then he went to get some money and there was a cash point in there and he took the money out and they charged him $2. He said, this is it. He said, we'll create Card Point and we'll charge people two quid to use a cash point. And he got it right at the top of the market. He actually made a few quid. If you're listening, Mark, can I just say I think you've got the best teeth in Britain as well. He'll laugh at that and he'll see his teeth as well. Who was your second chairman?
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Ian Plumb. So more recently, I think that was when we took the second round of investment for BGF at the end of last year. Ian came in, I think he's worked with Other BGF portfolio companies brings a lot of experience and a lot of value. Yeah, he's been great. And I think what we're looking at doing is just really trying get our operational side of the business in shape because the growth that we're seeing certainly in America and things like that, we're just trying to get the ship shape, I suppose so we can cope with the demand that's coming that we see.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: I suppose as well. And John, you'd know this as well that whoever the investor is, they're obviously thinking about return. You're constantly on that journey of thinking, right, you've raised that investment. You did your second round when you had all these opportunities you needed to improve your cash flow. I know you opened up in the US you opened up a 20,000 square foot premises in South Carolina as well. Are you thinking, is that thought process about the next one? Is that in your.
[00:16:45] Speaker C: The next what?
[00:16:46] Speaker A: The world. The next investment, the BGF and Exit?
[00:16:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's been talked about over the years but I think we've had a fair few ups and downs with regards to Covid and things like that. So I think bgf another thing that appealed to us was probably there's no pressure to sell so it's more of a longer term investment.
It's definitely, obviously they'll want to see their return, but I think there's that much opportunity at the moment that we're seeing certainly in the US the growth is there. So it's really just trying to capitalize on the opportunities that we've got and then whatever the future holds, I think.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: But as sales were growing, because it looks like it grew astronomically, you did go back to them and raise some more follow on money from. Yeah, from bgf, didn't they? So what, you know, presumably that, that wasn't always the plan. Do you want to just talk about that?
[00:17:36] Speaker C: I think we, it was kind of like the opportunity that we got at the end of last year with, with some new clients kind of came a bit like. I mean we couldn't have predicted that we'd get two of the largest sort of QSR brands in the world. Which two did you get? Subway and Burger King we started working with. So it was like. So those two things came along at the same time and you either go for it or you don't accept those orders. So I think we needed working capital to be able to buy the products because I think with our business we obviously have to purchase the hardware, the technology, build it into a kiosk. Then ship it and sell it. So we need a lot of working capital to be able to fund that process, the procurement process. The opportunity came at the end of last year and then we basically went to BGF to see if we could raise some money to be able to take the opportunity. Really?
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So it seems like you've had quite a good experience with private equity with bgf. I'm interested if there's any experiences or lessons learned about working with private equity that you've got to share for other people.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: I think from our business, the time is right. Initially, I think you just need to understand what you're getting into and whether you can. So what we did in the early days is we used bank, you know, bank finance and things like that to fund the business until we needed to exit Graham and Ian. I mean, but it has been a good process and it's been a good experience, but you are giving up something, so, you know, with that comes pressure. So understanding fully what you're getting into, really, you know, someone's buying into your business and giving you money, so that then brings with it more pressure, you know, from someone else. And someone else owns some of your business. So it's having your eyes open to that, really, and probably trying to get to a point, because if you do need to go and do more investment, you're just going to further dilute your shareholder in the company. So if you're a startup looking for investment, I think what I typically say is try and fund it, you know, in other means. Before. Yeah. Rather than sort of with equity funding as long as you can, because, you know, depending on your sort of strategic plans for the business, you need to know where you're going to end up with regard to the shareholder and control of your own company.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: I think when private equity investors make an investment in their business, they also take a whole load of control provisions in the agreement that gives them rights to veto things and to have a say in certain bits of the business. I think often people don't appreciate when they sell estate to private equity equity, that it is a significant event in the business's life and they are giving away a degree of control.
So the money that is received needs to be worth giving that control away.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with regards to sort of the shareholder agreements and stuff and what they can do regard to swamping and.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Like vetoing things, it can be quite scary.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: It can be. And you probably don't fully understand what those mechanisms are, I suppose, until maybe you come.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: And sometimes there'll be a lawyer or an advisor will say, well that's on my market. So you've got to agree to that.
[00:20:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: And I think, well, it might be a market but there's still no line that.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Look at it. No.
Do you see that though? Because you know, obviously you know, you're, you're, you're the co founder of a business, you're a deal maker extraordinaire.
I would imagine that if you're a business that's looking to raise investment and private equity says look, here's a check for 10 million and they get you, they've hooked you then. And by already you're thinking to yourself, well I can maybe take some cash off the table, maybe pay off my mortgage, maybe go on holiday with the kids, etc. Etc. Maybe take on that, that marketing director that I've always wanted to take on, et cetera, et cetera. But then they come back to you and BGF aren't that investor incidentally. But there are unscrupulous investors out there and then suddenly you've got like a contract that's about 50 pages long with conditions and terms that basically means that if it goes wrong, they're okay, but you're not.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I still think it's about, about being unscrupulous. I think that you've just got. Investors are seeking to protect their investments and those investment agreements have evolved over decades of maturing of the private equity industry.
However, each deal is different and while you're often presented with a suite of agree these control provisions you can normally look at some of them, say those ones aren't relevant to this particular circumstance. If you're a founder, I always think philosophically you're entitled to more rights when you roll over your investment alongside a private equity house than for example, if you were a management team where the business had been sold and you were suddenly becoming into the equity ownership for the first time, it's quite different. So I think founders are entitled to be a lot more forthright about protecting their control provisions.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: You got no regrets.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: No.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: You've got no grey hair either, so you must be doing something.
[00:22:38] Speaker C: Well, I've got one or two, to be honest. My kids keep pointing out, but not man, you know.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Listen, thanks very much, Dean. That brings us to the end of part one of the Dealmaker cup podcast. After break, me and Jonathan will be talking about this interview.
Welcome back to the second half of the Dealmaker Uncut podcast. We just been joined by Dean Ward of Evoke Creative. What do you think, Jonathan?
[00:23:16] Speaker B: So I just thought that was a really great story. It's a really good example of a business that's moved rapidly through from early stage venture capital and it's taking on its first private equity investor to fuel the growth. And I think there is a big change when you move from. Dean mentioned it when you move from venture capital to private equity. But you know the growth, the story about taking on the McDonald's contract and it's proper startup thinking or early stage thinking and it just is a great exact story and you can see that in due course they'll probably take on another investor and they'll be on to the next phase of growth. I just think it's a really great story.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And one of the things about Dean as well is Dean's. When I was at Insider Business Cloud now Dean always took the opportunity to talk about Evoke. So it became a. It was seen as being like the poster boy of the Liverpool city region's business tech scene as well. I also think the point you made is really interesting, which is that actually investment doesn't come with no strings attached. Investors have got their own agenda. You've got your agenda as a founder wanting to take the investment. You just need to go into it with your eyes open.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And we do talk to a lot of people who are, who are thinking of taking private equity money on board either to take some cash out of the business, sometimes it's to buy out some shareholders, sometimes everybody wants to take some money off the table and very often people will say I want to keep it so that the new investors, a small minority, will take as little as possible off the table to make sure they get as little investment as they can. Whereas often you think, well, you are actually it's a major event in the business, you are giving away control and often it's important to make sure it was worth it. Take enough money off the table or get enough money into the business that that was worthwhile. And that is a really common feature that people underestimate the impact that the new investor can have on the business.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Good and bad.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: But yeah, both do and it drives a whole load of different behavior around managing cash. There's accountability to somebody else for the strategy.
If there's a wobble, if things go wrong, then again it can be a bit more awkward to explain. But sometimes you can also get a helping hand as well. So what I mean, each investor is different and reacts to successes and failures in different ways. Investors have different attitudes to looking after the management team compared to focusing on their own return. So there is just a very wide range of different private equity investors.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: This next section is called Ask Jonathan. So the clue is in the name there when listeners can ask Jonathan any question they want. Presumably it's just about deal making and not life in general.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Anything really.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Now, for obvious reasons, not all the people, those people looking to sell a business want to be identified, so they've not all been named. I should also point out as well, we were asked one question via a text message which is, can Jonathan tell us what Rachel Reid is going to talk about in her book Budget? Now, you clearly you could, but, but we don't know when this is going to be transmitted, this podcast. So, you know, I'm not going to get you to give your insights into the whole capital gains tax scenario. But first question we've had is, Jonathan, I read your post on LinkedIn about a 40% drop in deal volumes in 2023. I've been keeping my powder dry on when to sell my business. Now obviously there's concerns over what Rachel Reeves going to say in her budget as well. When do you think? This is the question. When do you think the market will turn?
[00:26:56] Speaker B: So 2023 was a bad year for corporate finance. The market did dip. The deal volumes did come off by 40%. What we've experienced is there's a lot of people now wanting to sell their businesses they didn't sell last year.
And we are experiencing a lot of new mandates coming into the market at the moment. So a lot of people appointed advisors at the start of the summ and already in the last quarter we're seeing a lot more deals in the market. We think they'll start to turn into completions round about the end of October. I think there's a lot of people now worrying about the budget and so people trying to get deals completed by October.
There's other people focusing more on March.
But the reality is I think there's enough deals in the market now and there's still plenty of dry powder that deal volumes will be going up through October, November, December all the way through probably the first half of next year.
There's still some nervousness in the market. I think the government have talked down the state of the economy a little bit. I think people were feeling a bit more bullish with interest rates coming down and some of the fuel shock and things like that starting to be in the past.
But there's still a little bit of nervousness around. So I think the deal market is going to get more benign as Time passes over the next year or two now.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Okay, and follow up question. If you look into your crystal ball, Jonathan, what can you see in 2025 other than another trip to Glastonbury?
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Like I say, I think the deals market will be improving. I think there'll be. It depends what happens in the budget. It's possible that that there'll be another rush to get deals done by March. If the CGT rate, whatever happens to CGT has been announced, but only happens.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: In capital gains tax.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Capital gains tax only happens at the tax year end, then there could be another rush of deals for the end of the year. But I think there'll still be deals happening throughout. I think the deal volumes will be increasing throughout next year.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Okay, next question. I don't know what your politics are, Jonathan, but a listener wants to know what impact November's US Presidential election could have on the deals market. Alvarez and Marcel were founded in the US in 1983, so you're the perfect person to answer that question.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't really do politics, but I'd probably be described as a centrist dad.
I must say, I've become obsessed by the US Election. I've been listening to more podcasts about America than certainly than I ever have done before.
Who knows what's going to happen? Feels like it's going to be close. I think the outcome will have reverberations everywhere across the world.
I think people have speculated about the impact on the Ukraine situation, the situation in the Middle East. So I think if Donald Trump wins, then I think the impact on major events like those will be very different to if Kamala Harris gets through. So inevitably, that will have an impact on the economy and therefore on the deals market.
But I don't know what will happen. It's going to be really close.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: I can see you appearing airing on U.S. politics podcasts at this rate. You were very informed. A final question. I read a blog that you did recently and you were talking about the growing influence of family offices around the world on the deals market. Not everyone listening to this podcast will be familiar with family offices. What are they and why are they so significant?
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's a whole range of different types of family offices. What I'm talking about is families often have built a business up and sold them and created very significant wealth and they want to continue investing. So they set up a family office that is a vehicle to make further investments in businesses and in other projects. Often if you look around the world in the Middle east, where there's a whole load of sovereign funds or family offices linked to the sovereign money in India. I was in India fairly recently and I met a few of the larger family offices.
But across Europe, across the world, there's families. Some of them look and act a bit like private equity houses and behave and drive returns in the same way. Others are much more patient capital. They'll invest for the long term.
They'll invest based on a bit more on personal preferences rather than pure business returns.
And I say culturally, across the world, there's so many. Now there's a whole load in the US and we've seen them buying football clubs in the uk.
So I've just found that to be a really interesting source of funding.
I suppose working at Alvarez and Marcel, because we're such a global business, we've got a lot more visibility of these sources of funding, whether it be in the US or in some of these other places I've been talking about.
It's just opened and opened my eyes to the opportunities for international funding.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So feel free to send it further questions to Jonathan via the show Notes as well. And that's all for this episode of the Dealmaker Uncut Podcast, powered by Avrus and Marcel. Final shout out to what media and the star of the show, Jonathan Boyers.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Okay, you always when I give you the big intro and I say, you know, big thanks to Jonathan Boyers, you just say thanks, Chris, because you're so modest as well. So I'm here to give you the big raps as well. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Tell your friends and family to follow us on social media until the next episode of the Dealmaker Uncut Podcast. Thank you very much. Thank you for tuning in to the Dealmaker Uncut Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation and found it insightful. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe and tell your friends. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Dealmaker Uncut Podcast.
