January 2018
MidMarket Talk: January 2018
Welcome
New Members
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New Members   to the Alliance community!

 

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CM&AA 2018

2018 Training & Certification 
Registration Open!

Obtain the most advanced credential illustrating the highest recognized standards of professional excellence for middle market corporate finance, advisory, and transaction service professionals in a collaborative, peer-driven learning environment. 

February 26 - March 2, 2018
Thunderbird School
Glendale, AZ

April 23 - 27, 2018
University of Maryland
Washington, DC 

May 21 - 25, 2018 
DePaul University
Chicago, IL 

September 24 - 28, 2018
DePaul University
Chicago, IL 

October 22 - 26, 2018
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA

 
Attend a Chapter Event Near You!
New England
Monday, February 12, 2018

Nevada/Utah
Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Central PA
Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Midwest
Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Carolinas
Thursday, March 1, 2018

Long Island
Wednesday, March 21, 2018

SAVE THE DATE 

New Jersey 
*Inaugural Event*
Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Dallas
Thursday, February 22, 2018

NE Ohio
Thursday, March 8, 2018

Arizona
Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Tampa Bay
Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Philadelphia
Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Pittsburgh
Thursday, March 22, 2018

DC.MD.VA
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
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Wild Wild West of ICO's Time to Move Over; Regulated ICO's are Coming (#TAO)  
By: Oscar Jofre, Co-Founder & President/CEO, KoreConx Corp.

Those that can remember the wild wild west of crowdfunding back in 2010-2011 will have a feeling of dejavu seeing the 2017 ICO market take off.  Not that crowdfunding ever saw the numbers that we are seeing in the ICO market, but that is because the securities regulators stepped in early when crowdfunding launched in order to protect the market.
 
What ICO's are demonstrating, that crowdfunding never had the chance to, is the global willingness of investors from a variety of countries to invest in all sorts of early stage companies.  The main reason here why ICO's are having success where crowdfunding did not comes down to the underlying technology, namely "Blockchain".
 
ICO's have demonstrated that investors are willing to invest in companies anywhere in the world.  Traditionally, it was believed that investors like to only invest locally.  This local investing premise has been the driving force behind the success of Silicon Valley and other hot spots where companies and local investors meet.  
 
So what is different with ICO's?  It is mainly due to the underlying Blockchain technology that brings TRUST to investors/contributors who immediately get a token in exchange for their contribution.  
 
According to the cryptocurrency statistics website Coinschedule , a total of 235 ICO's have raised over $3.7 billion in 2017.  There does not appear to be any slow down in this market as this seems to be the new flavour for companies raising money.
 
Going forward what does it mean for investors and issuers alike who are preparing for the opportunity of utilizing an ICO as a way of accessing capital in 2018? Continue Reading >>
What Dealmakers Need to Know: Cultural Due Diligence (CDD) 
By: Gary W. Craig, Managing Partner & COO, Vector Group, Inc. 

At the Miami AM&AA Winter Conference, two of us presented the topic, Dealmakers: Heads in the Sand or Dealing Effectively with Culture Clash and other Human Capital Challenges. We shared some insights, experiences, and best practices on how to prevent critical deal value from being destroyed by cultural and organizational issues.
 
Cultural Due Diligence or CDD should be made part of every deal to help insure its long-term success. The numbers remain staggering insofar as upwards of 90% of deals fail due to cultural issues.
 
Our efforts will continue to create dialogue surrounding Dealmakers and their needs (both stated and unstated). We see Dealmakers as wanting to make successful deals that last but the M&A failure rate and other impediments to success get in the way of that. Our point about "heads in the sand" is just that; many Dealmakers deny the challenges of culture and human capital issues or hope the problems just go away.
 
We see this as normal but certainly fixable. There is still a great deal of misunderstanding and misconceptions about organizational culture and human capital issues in general. Usually, this is not part of a Dealmaker's repertoire. Dealmakers focus almost entirely on financial aspects and leave the "people issues" to someone else. We need to make Dealmakers more aware of the criticality of conducting an effective Cultural Due Diligence (CDD) process to help enable their clients to avoid the biggest cause of failure.  Continue Reading >>
Congratulations to our 2017 Award Winners
  • 2017 Certified M&A Advisor Award - Andrew Tomat, CM&AA, Managing Director, Four Pillars, Inc. 
  • 2017 Founders Circle - David G. Asmus, Partner, SmithAmundsen
  • 2017 Chapter Leader of the Year - Timothy Carstens, Senior Vice President, MB Business Capital
  • 2017 Member of the Year - Bruce Marks, CM&AA, Business Acquisition Specialist, Radius Bank
  • 2017 Thought Leader of the Year - David H. Crean, Managing Director, Objective Capital Partners
Member Benefit Highlight 
Sign Up for D&B Hoovers and Save 60%!
D&B Hoovers, formerly Avention OneSource, offers the world's first platform that harnesses and leverages Big Data, so you can search the explosion of data and relate it to the businesses, contacts, and topics you care about. It's a web-based portal providing in-depth public and private company profiles that allows you to target more strategically comprehensive intelligence on 265M+ companies, 100M+ contacts, and 1K+ industries. Continue Reading>>

2018 Summer Conference

Thank You to Our Partners
  

Contact Us
222 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 300
Chicago, IL 60601
 
The Alliance of M&A Advisors® 
(The Alliance) is the premiere International Organization serving the educational and resource needs of the middle market M&A profession. Formed in 1998 to bring together CPAs, attorneys and other experienced corporate financial advisors, the Alliance's 1000+ professional services firms - including some of the most highly recognized leaders in the industry-draw upon their combined transactional expertise to better serve the needs of their middle market clients worldwide.