Middle Market Musings

John Connaughton is chair of Bain Capital, the Boston-based private equity firm with roughly $225 billion in assets under management.  Discussion begins with John’s childhood in Baltimore and the pace set by his Irish emigre parents.  College at UVA and business school at Harvard followed.  John joined Bain in 1989, an early employee in the private equity effort that spun out of the Bain & Co....

Morgan Witham, a stellar product of the Harris Williams “coaching tree,” stops by Middle Market Musings – akin to starting your career with the New York Yankees and ending up in the dugout with Ricky Vaughn and Willie Mays Hayes.  Morgan recently launched Ficus Advisors, a new firm that helps private equity clients guide management teams dealing with first-time institutional capital, post-deal int...

Emily is a Managing Director at Permanent Equity, a St. Louis-based private equity firm that his made its reputation as its name suggests – by investing out of 30-year funds that enable longer term holds and relationships with founding entrepreneurs.  Emily and the hosts sail through her childhood in Indianapolis, college as a journalism major at the University of Missouri and a first job in marke...

This one is as action-packed and varied in scene as a James Bond movie.  John Ferrara is founder and CEO of Capstone Partners, the middle market investment bank.  John’s story rolls through his upbringing in hardscrabble Brockton, MA to college at liberal arts enclave Wesleyan to an early career stop with Lehman Brothers on Wall Street, to two years of professional baseball in Australia.  Then bus...

Rocky is Senior Manager Director and Co-Head of Investment Banking at Mesirow, the Chicago-based employee-owned, diversified financial services firm.  A Chicagoland native who survived Eastern stops for college at Penn and a first job at Merrill Lynch, Rocky has been at Mesirow since 2001. He has charted and contributed to the firm’s emergence as a significant force in middle market M&A.  On t...

Rick Horowitz misses the off ramp and ends up on a podcast in the bad part of town.  Rick is chairman and CEO of RAF Equity, a Philadelphia-based private equity fund formed as a family office in 1979.  Rick has three singular stories to tell:  (1) the legacy of Robert A. Fox, the firm’s founder and a towering figure in Delaware Valley business circles; (2) RAF’s successful leadership transition fr...

Peter Fader is the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as co-founder of Theta Equity, a next-generation data analytics firm.  Much discussion about Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), the concept that has animated Pete’s academic career and business endeavors.  Pete’s fascination with numbers and data leads to an array of oth...

Rit Amin is Executive Managing Director and Head of Capital Markets at Regions Securities, the investment banking arm of Regions Bank.  Rit has overseen the firm’s entry into capital markets, as well as the acquisition of BlackArch Partners in 2016 and Clearsight Advisors in 2021.  His visit to Middle Market Musings begins with frequent childhood moves – experiences that helped develop the adaptab...

Mark Sullivan rips the bandaid off of decades of repressed memories about past dealings with Andy and Charlie to join the show   Mark is co-founder and partner at Lineage Capital, one of the leading private equity firms devoted to leaving growth-minded business owners with board control, even after selling a majority stake. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Lineage and Charlie’s firm New Herit...

Are MMM listeners desirous to hear from the builder of a multi-billion-dollar investment complex, or from a guy who effuses about Dr. Dre’s iconic debut album?  If so, our conversation with Jack Glover checks both boxes….and then some.      Jack is Founder and Managing Partner of Incline Equity Partners, a PE firm with over $6.5 billion in committed capital.   Today, Incline is investing out of th...

Nadim Malik drops by, and brings the receipts with him. Nadim is founder of Sutton Place Strategies, the preeminent provider of deal origination and business development data to private equity and M&A firms. The episode begins with Nadim’s recollections of early encounters with the MMM hosts, including contemporaneous notes on a 2011 meeting with a characteristically friendly but non-committal...

Michael Butler is Chairman and CEO of Cascadia Capital, the independent investment bank that has completed more than 550 deals since Michael co-founded it in 1999.  Discussion begins with early stops in Michael’s journey – childhood and college in Washington state, then moving cross country to try his luck in Manhattan, a first job at Morgan Stanley and then business school at Wharton.  This episo...

Tim is the CEO and Founder of BTP, an AI Strategy consulting firm devoted to helping private equity firms and other clients understand and develop a competitive advantage by leveraging artificial intelligence.  Tim is a clear thinker on what AI is, and what it isn’t.   Discussion begins with Tim’s well-traveled boyhood as the son of an oil executive, followed by college lat Texas Tech and a career...

An urban whirlwind blows through the MMM studios when Justin Abelow drops by.   Justin is a long-tenured Managing Director in the financial sponsors group at Houlihan Lokey.  He manages to be both a resolute Manhattanite and a global student of business, history and culture.   Upper East Side boyhood steeped in the “Masters of the Universe” world of corporate finance in the ‘80s, undergraduate and...

Jack Markell – elected five times (without a loss) to state-wide office in Delaware, veteran of more than 200 deals in the telecom industry, home from two ambassadorial postings in Europe – finds himself on the biggest stage yet.  Jack more than meets the moment in this MMM episode.  Discussion begins with a life-changing trip to India before Jack headed to Brown, McKinsey and the University of Ch...

SRS Acquiom is known to many for shareholder representation, paying agent, escrow agent and other services that help the parties on both sides complete an M&A transaction.  They’re also known for the annual Deal Terms Study and other analysis extracted from their data and experience.  It turns out there’s a guy for that!  Kip Wallen is SRS Acquiom’s Senior Director for Thought Leadership.   Cl...

Middle Market Musings kicks off its fifth season with a true survivor.  Steve Tipler is managing director in the Financial Sponsors group at Piper Sandler Companies.  He has survived a lifetime of Minnesota winters, a long-tenured friendship with Charlie Gifford, 20 years in the investment banking business and becoming a parent in the 1990s and in the 2020s.   He shares all in a wide-ranging discu...

Bob Landis may be the Middle Market Musings guest least in need of introduction – the O.G. business development partner at one of the most active middle market private equity funds, and the person cited most often by other MMM guests as career inspiration.   Bob is Founding Partner, Origination at The Riverside Company, a multi-vehicle investment company with more than $13 billion in assets under...

David Acharya gives Andy and Charlie the chance to dig into the world of independent sponsors. David began his career in leverage finance at JP Morgan Chase and charts his evolution into operationally minded principal investing. Much discussion ensues on Impact XM, an experiential marketing firm built up through acquisition and then sold to Riverside Company in a stellar 2023 exit. Finally, David...

Peter Kaufman is President/Head of Restructuring and Distressed M&A at Gordian Group, a New York City-based investment bank.  He’s found an illustrious second career as a regular golf contributor with The Daily Drive, an online golf journalism collective.   Andy and Charlie (who are both still in search of their first careers) enlist Peter in a tour of all things golf on the eve of this year’s...

New Heritage Capital's Greg Katz fills the "yawning" void left by Charlie Gifford's absence.

Graeme Frazier and Andy discuss GF Data and receiving the ACG Legend Award.

Christian is a Managing Director in Raymond James’ Private Capital Advisory Practice.  He finally runs out of excuses and ends up squinting under the hot lights of the MMM studios.  A discussion with two old friends hits the usual stops – Philadelphia roots, Trinity College, early career in PR before getting into finance – yet still manages to find plenty of opportunity for esoterica.  Listeners w...

This one combines the insight of a WWF wrestling match with the virility of an Aspen Institute panel discussion.  Mark Jones is a Partner at River Associates, the Chattanooga-based private equity firm currently investing out of its eighth vehicle.  For better or worse (admittedly worse for him), Mark is also a longtime friend of Andy and Charlie’s. He is a true son of the south – childhood in Sava...

David Michel is Chief Executive Officer of Catapult Health, a Dallas-based innovator in virtual at-home preventive care recently acquired by Teledoc Health for $65 million.  Each stop in David’s story is spellbinding.  David begins with his upbringing in southern Illinois, where his entrepreneur/radio broadcaster father played a large role in his upbringing. He then charts his own entrepreneurial...