Perspective
Roughly two thirds of private transactions reach capital through an intermediated auction. By the time a business is in a process, seven or eight bidders are looking at the same information, and the seller’s advisor is paid to compress the timeline and lift the price. Advantage, in that setting, is thin.
The transactions that reward a buyer are the ones reached before the process begins, negotiated bilaterally, on terms set by relationship rather than by competition. Proprietary, negotiated transactions have historically carried an estimated 15 to 25 percent cost advantage over auction outcomes. The Firm works on that side of the divide.
Source: Firm analysis, 2026.
Private markets hold approximately $3.7 trillion in undeployed capital, roughly double the level of 2019. For an owner, that is leverage. For an investor, it is pressure: committed capital carries a clock, and money that goes undeployed eventually returns to its holders and complicates the next raise.
The scarce resource is no longer money. It is a qualified opportunity, reached ahead of the market. The Firm’s coverage exists to produce exactly that, one relationship at a time.
Sources: Preqin, 2025 Global Private Equity Report; Firm analysis.
The businesses that define the middle market were built over decades by founders and families who are now approaching the decision that ends a career. Most of these transitions happen privately, quietly, and only once. The owner is deciding not only on a price, but on what the outcome protects: employees, name, legacy.
These are not auctions waiting to happen. They are relationships that begin, most often, a year or more before the moment they serve. The Firm’s work is to be known and trusted early, on both sides, so the right counterparties meet before a process ever forms.
Most advisors represent one side and optimize for it. The Firm is retained on both, capital and companies, and its counsel is accountable to the relationship rather than to any single transaction. That is not neutrality. It is position. Holding both sides is what lets the Firm reach a negotiated transaction that a one-sided mandate never sees.
It is also a discipline. The Firm serves a limited number of clients on each side and declines mandates that would conflict within a thesis and geography. Selectivity is what keeps the position credible.