Views From the Market

Today’s podcast guest is Jordan Fish of Blair Franklin, an M&A advisory practice with 20 years of Canadian midmarket experience. He and Mario discuss the state of the market at the midway mark of 2023, as buyers focus on higher quality assets and take a more cautious approach that is leading to extended due diligence processes. Sectors discussed include financial services, which continues to see s...

Mario Nigro speaks with Matthew Burpee of Kepler Capital, a Canadian firm focused on the lower end of the North American midmarket(typically under $3 million EBITDA/cash flow). Often overlooked by investors, these businesses offer many opportunities, and Matthew shares Kepler’s strategy of long-term collaboration and investment in outstanding enterprises that are “small” only because their market...

Mario’s guest on this podcast, Stikeman Elliott M&A partner Michael Decicco, has been closely tracking the development of the Employee Ownership Trust concept in Canada, which is being accelerated by changes to certain federal laws. Under the current proposal, business owners who sell to EOTs would enjoy some modest capital gains tax advantages. However, as Mike and Mario discuss, it is an open qu...

Today’s podcast guests are Colin Walker and Stephen Ng of Crosbie & Co., a midmarket M&A leader since the 1980s. While current market conditions can be challenging, Stephen and Colin continue to see significant deal flow driven by baby-boomer retirements and opportunistic acquisition strategies focused on high-quality businesses. As the “new normal” of higher interest rates, tighter diligence and...

Mario’s guest today is Stikeman Elliott’s Khalfan Khalfan, an expert in employment-related transactional issues. Topics discussed include, among others, new statutory curbs on the enforceability of employment non-competes, Canadian approaches to post-closing retention of vendor management, independent contractor mischaracterization issues and Competition Act prohibitions on no-poach agreements and...

Mario’s guest this week, Eric Castonguay of PwC’s Corporate Finance Group, discusses the resilience of midmarket M&A in Canada, which continues to be driven by the aging of the baby boomers, Covid burnout and a sense among corporate leaders that long-term survival requires transformative change. Private equity’s need to deploy capital is also a factor. Even so, 2023 is in many respects a buyer’s m...

In this podcast, Mario speaks with Liz Pillon, leader of the restructuring practice in Stikeman Elliott’s Toronto office, about the role that restructuring professionals are playing in today’s M&A market. In 2023, Liz has noted a considerable increase in formal insolvency proceedings after a period in which lenders had been hesitant to initiate them. If involved early enough, restructuring lawyers...

Today’s guest, midmarket transactional diligence specialist John Caggianiello, shares his “in the trenches” view of the current state of Canada’s M&A market. After a noticeable slow-down in Q1 2023 that particularly affected tech deals and clinical (e.g. dental) roll-ups, activity seems to have increased in March and April. However, the deals that are getting done are proceeding more slowly as buy...

Mario’s guest this week is Michael Platt, CEO of Carma Corp. Based in Lindsay, Ont., Carma provides sub-metering services, generating data on utility usage in residential buildings and commercial enterprises. Michael attributes his success in breaking into this competitive industry to his efforts, as a self-funded searcher, to build trust with the company’s owner. He has applied the same relations...

Joining Mario for this podcast is Ray Gingras of Coldwater Corporate Finance, who shares some of his experiences supporting owner-operators through the arduous and usually unfamiliar process of selling their businesses. While the economy may generally be slowing, Ray and his firm continue to be very busy as strategic buyers prioritize locking up the long-term value that Coldwater’s midmarket clien...

Joining Mario Nigro is Larry Dunn of Endurance Search Partners, which has supported over 250 searchers across the U.S. and Canada since 2009. Larry and Mario discuss the current state of the market in the U.S. and Canada as well as the characteristics that Endurance looks for in successful searchers. In Larry’s view, the search sector is positioned for continued growth, even in challenging economi...

In this podcast, Mario speaks with Sabine Veit about selling the frozen bread business she had built from scratch over three decades. The success of the business, which required infusions of capital as it grew, led to the realization that it was time to sell, and Sabine notes the critical importance of specialized advisors in what was to her the very unfamiliar world of M&A. By selling well before...

This week’s podcast looks at the potential of Canada’s corporate midmarket from the perspective of government. Mario’s guest, the Hon. Mary Ng, is Canada’s Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development. Minister Ng and Mario speak about federal programs to help businesses expand internationally, initiatives that promote women entrepreneurs, opportunitie...

This edition of the podcast features Vancouver-based Jan Simon, co-founder and managing partner of Vonzeo Capital, an international search fund investor. With a background as an investment banker and academic, Jan was involved in some of the earliest searches outside the U.S. and has been a key player in the industry’s rapid growth. Among other insights, he notes the importance of board guidance a...

Today’s guest, Michelle Pickett, is a PwC partner in Toronto with a restructuring focus. She and Mario discuss the challenges facing companies in the current market environment, from overbought inventory to rapidly rising debt service costs. Avoiding a full-scale restructuring often depends on a company’s commitment to addressing issues of this type as soon as they appear, before major liquidity p...

Mario is joined today by Leon Chen and Rob Shilton, members of Kayne’s Los Angeles office. Rob and Leon, whose special focus is on growth equity for tech and tech-enabled businesses, describe the efficiency and resilience that are characteristic of the Canadian companies that make up a large part of their portfolio. They and Mario also discuss the market’s recent shift away from “grow at all costs...

Today’s podcast guest is Yas Ali, CEO of Ontario Home Health, a provider of medical devices that allow those with chronic illnesses to live comfortably at home. After deciding that he wanted to own his own business, Yas entered into a self-funded search process, casting his net wide and looking at hundreds of possibilities before discovering Ontario Home Health. He and host Mario Nigro discuss his...

Mario’s guest in this podcast is Brian Faughnan of Osprey Capital, a leading sell-side advisor in the Canadian midmarket. The focus of their discussion is the growing presence and acceptance of private equity buyers in Canada over the past 10-15 years. In Brian’s experience, private equity firms, which in the midmarket still tend to be U.S.-based, now often comprise 80-90% of the buyer pool. As ma...

Sheret Ross and Michael Levine of Cardata join Mario to discuss their journey from MBA students to searchers to successful entrepreneurs. A diligent and proactive search process led Sheret and Michael to Cardata, a business with an efficient solution for companies that reimburse employees for personal vehicle use. They discuss how they built upon Cardata’s existing strengths by expanding its marke...

Michael Denham of National Bank joins Mario in this edition of the podcast to discuss the current state of M&A activity in Canada. The midmarket continues to be busy in 2023, as companies look for productivity-enhancing acquisitions that will enable them to thrive in the post-pandemic world. At the same time, labour shortages continue to pose challenges and may play a part in driving up interest r...

Mario’s special guest on this podcast, Corrado Paina, has promoted Canadian-Italian trade for many years as Executive Director of the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Ontario. He and Mario look at how free trade has enhanced the ability of small and mid-sized Canadian and Italian companies, from a wide variety of sectors, to access each other’s markets.

Mario’s guest is Sanjiv Samant, manager of the Round13 Growth Fund at Toronto-based Round13 Capital. Sanjiv’s fund provides growth equity, typically in the range of $15-25 million, to companies that are approaching a liquidity event. Sanjiv and Round13 established this fund to provide the specific supports that companies need at this important stage – filling a gap in the Canadian market. Sanjiv a...

In this podcast, Mario Nigro speaks with Stikeman Elliott’s Eric Bremermann, a specialist in acquisitions involving Canadian and European businesses – particularly those from German-speaking countries. In the past year, Eric has observed a surge in interest in Canadian critical mineral sector as European firms look to low-risk, “friendly” sources of key supply chain components, including lithium.

Joining Mario is Shez Bandukwala, Managing Director of KPMG’s Corporate Finance Group in Toronto. Shez recently brought his 30-years of investment banking experience to the Canadian private equity market. He notes the differences in the Canadian vs the U.S. market with the Canadian private equity market being, as yet much smaller, somewhat less efficient, more conservative in overall leverage and,...

In this podcast, Mario is joined by Bruno Suppa, CEO of BDO Canada, an organization with a strong midmarket focus. While not downplaying the possibility of recession in 2023, Bruno foresees considerable resilience in Canadian midmarket M&A, thanks in part to factors such as the favourable U.S. exchange rate and private equity’s continuing capacity, in all economic conditions, to unlock value in sm...