Episode 424: The DealQuest Quarterly Roundtable

Corey KupferDealQuest community, I'm super excited to have our second quarterly deals roundtable update with my partners, Brian Meegan and Sara Mostafa. Hopefully you caught our first one last quarter. For those of you who didn't, the intention here is an additional format for what we'll be doing quarterly on the DealQuest Podcast, which is to talk about what's happening in the deal world over the last quarter. This is a big part of our m&a work, and sharing it this way lets us bring our m&a experience to the audience in real time.

And of course we have a couple of special segments for those of you who heard the first one. Brian had a segment on deals in history and he's going to continue that. And we have a new segment that we'll be adding that Sara will lead us through, so you'll see what that is when it comes up. The thing I want to say to kick it off is that we're recording this early September, so we're talking about Q2 2026. This will not go out until probably October by the time it's edited. So if anything great or crazy happened in the world between now and then, that would be discussed in Q3's review.

I actually just got back from the Echelon Deals and Dealmakers Summit, so I got some really interesting data on what's going on in the wealth management space, which is a big part of our m&a business. We're going to be talking about deals generally across all spaces, because we do deals across industries, even though we do a lot in wealth management. One of the things that definitely came up at the conference, which is not necessarily new this quarter but is an evolving and more prevalent story, is that there are more continuation funds happening in PE. We see this outside wealth management as well.

There is a lot of dry powder and a lot of money out there that hasn't even been deployed yet. And the money that has been deployed, there's a significant uptick in continuation funds because there's been much less monetization. Part of that is because the IPO markets. One of the things Louis Schiff talked about at the conference was that the number of IPOs in general is way down from what it was in years past, significantly, like thousands. That's a big thing. It's not the only exit vehicle, but it is certainly one of the ways, as you go up the sponsor ladder, that you want, and if the IPO market has become less attractive or less available, it causes private capital to have to figure out other solutions, whether it's sovereign wealth funds or continuation funds. So they mentioned that there. That's definitely still happening across industries.

I got some stats on the lower middle market, but I'll save those. Brian and Sara, why don't you guys jump in and let's talk about what we're seeing in terms of trends and stats before we get into any of our specific segments. This is really the heart of m&a strategy right now, so I want to hear what you're both tracking.

Sara MostafaAll right. So one trend that I know we've seen now over the course of a few quarters is a lot of allocation of risk to the seller when it comes to purchase price in M&A transactions. The easy cash of the past is no longer available. Now we're seeing much more complex structured transactions, with earnouts and rollover equity comprising a large portion of the consideration that used to be available in cash. The consideration portion in cash is dramatically reduced. Now there's more consideration being given in the form of earnouts and rollover equity.

Corey KupferYeah, we got that. All right, what do you got, Brian?

Brian MeeganWell, I'll tell you, you were mentioning the IPOs, and I just happened to, and we'll talk a little bit more about the New York Times article, but out of that, PE backed IPOs between 2017 and 2021, there were 424. PE backed IPOs between 2022 and the present, 70, according to Dealogic. So to your point, a lot fewer.

We all know that things changed with COVID, and as interest rates started to rise toward the end of that, that obviously has had a major impact on this, which we are continuing to see. I think there was a lot of hope and optimism that rates were coming down, that we were looking better and better. I think that started to get us some momentum in the first half of the year, where it felt like, yes, we've got this conflict going on that is continuing to keep oil prices high, but there was some optimism that things were going to continue to ratchet down. And I think we're now seeing that that hasn't happened, and in fact right now it's gone up again.

So by all of the historical data within this year that we've seen, it still shows to be a strong market for M&A. But boy, it just seems like the headwinds keep coming. So I'll be interested to see how that plays out toward the end of the year here.

Corey KupferYeah, it's fascinating. Without staying out of the politics of it, there have been recent signals from the Fed interpreted as an indication that rates might go up, even from figures who were expected to lean toward bringing them down. You can't guarantee what the future's going to bring, but I think it says something when the leanings that pointed toward lowering interest rates start to shift the other way.

The other interesting part is that one of the reasons there's so much dry powder on the private side is because there is this much lower number of IPOs. Money has to go somewhere, because despite these headwinds you're talking about, Brian, companies are making money. There is capital out there. So you have this combination where corporate profits are up, and technology and other trends are part of that, so investors want to invest. You don't have as much on the IPO side, so more money's flowing into private.

But they're having trouble deploying it in some industries, and in other industries, because there's not that exit point, that money is getting hung up, hence the continuation funds. So there's a huge amount of money on the private side. And with AI and whatever, there's an opportunity, and firms are becoming more profitable as well. So it's going to be really interesting to see where those trends go.

One of the other things I'll mention before I kick it back is that in the middle market and lower middle market, overall globally, deal volume is down globally. Total deal value is actually up because there are fewer bigger deals happening, but in the lower middle market and middle market there's actually a record number of deals. Axial reported a record 3,523 deals coming to market in Q2 2026, which is up 4.79 percent globally over the same quarter of last year. Watching deal volume like that is a big part of how we read m&a strategy for clients.

So more money. The other trend that's happening, and this was talked about at the conference as well and on the wealth management side, but it's true across industries, is that you have this combination of more money in the private markets. So what happens is the money's coming down. If the money has to be deployed, they go down market. Because there's a limited amount you can do on the mega deals, then it comes to the larger deals, then the middle market deals, and then if there's still money sitting around. The problem with these funds is there are significant issues for the sponsors if they don't deploy capital. So they start deploying it down, which makes a huge opportunity for lower middle market and middle market companies to actually raise capital. A lot of our m&a work is helping those companies think through growth through acquisitions and capital raises. Whereas it would be less available to them in markets where it was staying at the higher end and where there was a more robust IPO market. So we're definitely seeing that as well.

Sara MostafaAnd I think there's a confounding variable too here, which is that closing timelines have been extended pretty dramatically, sometimes up to three times longer than is standard. That's in large part due to AI and tech diligence becoming kind of a deal breaker in a lot of instances, or also just prolonging the diligence process in general. Buyers are very heavily focused on determining whether the IP portion of any assets, for example, that they're acquiring, what's the hygiene of that tech? Was it developed from unlicensed sources, from open source code? And so that's been causing delays for closing timelines, in addition to federal and state, at least here in California, statewide regulatory changes. So when you look at the whole number of deals closing in any given period, that's going to be confounded by the delay in closing some of these transactions.

Brian MeeganTo add to the confounding factor there. At the very same time as we have experienced, even in the firm, the use of AI by us and by the deal team actually has brought a greater efficiency. When you're dealing with the old boxes and boxes of data that you had to go into the data room to find, which was literally a room but now is of course virtual, AI can run through that and give you analytics in a matter of minutes that it took days to go through. So once again, like two different things at the same time, greater need for understanding of the hygiene on that particular type of asset, and yet the ability to analyze it is increasing. So it's a jerky kind of ultimate outcome.

The other piece, and I'll now do confounding data with what you said, Corey, with respect to this lower middle market, and I'm going to introduce this New York Times article that came out in August, I think August 10th or something. They talk about the fact that as of June 30th, private equity firms had 33,575 unsold companies in their portfolios. That was up from like 32,500 the year before. And just for some comparison, a decade ago, that was 15,923, I think.

So there's definitely been this growing, and of course there may be more private equity groups out there acquiring, but nevertheless, there is an undeniable trend toward longer hold times with some of these portfolio companies that they've purchased. And of course we've already talked about interest rates being one of the reasons for that. But they don't want to lock in these losses. Those companies haven't realized their value yet, and it's taken them longer to do that. As the economy kind of comes down, that means they don't have the same wherewithal to turn those profits and flip the company for the multiples that they promised those investors when they got into those funds. So they've got to hold out for a little longer, which means we're extending, and the average return is coming down.

One little piece that maybe we can talk about. A lot of that comes indirectly from AI, software companies. Software companies were the darlings just a few years ago that PE firms were picking up left and right, and they're assembling and growing their software development companies, and software companies themselves, SaaS products. Well, AI is now pressing those back down again, and now those software companies are struggling. So again, confounding factors, AI being a positive force and a negative force all at the same time.

Corey KupferYeah. One of the stats at the Echelon conference, just in the wealth management space, and listen, I was around long enough, I talk about a time where, forget private equity, there was barely lending in the space. I'm only going back less than fifteen years ago. Even when a couple of PE firms came in, you could count them on one hand, maybe two. I think the stat was 220 some odd private equity firms that have invested in the wealth management space alone. Over 200, 208, 220, I forget the exact number, but it's somewhere in that low 200s that have actually made investments. And I know some that haven't yet made investments who are looking to get in, a couple of whom I was speaking to at the conference. And that's just in the wealth management space alone. This is really the center of RIA m&a right now.

Although I think it is at a higher ratio, the growth in the wealth management space, because it's a space that PE has found, which happens with PE. You mentioned, Brian, that software was hot for a while, and now with AI it's like, well, wait, AI great software, maybe these companies aren't worth as much. The money goes somewhere, and one of the places it's gone is definitely in the wealth management space, because they've discovered it. So you're not going to have that same kind of growth ratio generally. But overall, the number of PE firms, period, has increased significantly. Maybe not quite at the rate that it's focused in the wealth management space, but it's just another way of saying how much dry powder and capital there is sitting out there. That kind of capital inflow is reshaping wealth management m&a across the board.

Brian MeeganWell, and Sara, you had a quote in an article just the other day talking about other entrants, family offices and even sovereign wealth groups that are coming in and making investments, not necessarily majority investments, but we're seeing some of that activity too. You can chat a little bit about that.

Sara MostafaYeah. So I had been talking about minority ownership in some of these companies and coming in and making an investment, and the importance of making sure you negotiate either a board seat or some other type of management right when you're coming in as a minority owner with a significant investment, and some sort of cash out option depending on certain triggering events, such as an acquisition. Some sort of exit transaction including an acquisition, and making sure you have some economic upside in that event.

Corey KupferYeah, and that's an interesting question that's come up in a lot of situations with these minority investors, like you were quoted on talking about. This was, I think, Family Wealth Report, Charlie Baker. Charlie's been a reporter and around the industry for a long time, so we appreciate him picking up that quote. It was interesting, because sometimes people have a misperception that because you have a minority investment, if you're the entrepreneur or the business owner taking it in, it means I still have full control, I'm taking no, they have a minority economic investment, and usually on day to day you get to run the company. But on the important stuff, as was evidenced here where we were looking at it from the other point of view, the power and control that the minority investor has, whether it's board seats, veto rights, tag along rights, ratchet rights, or priority investment rights, there's a lot of things that minority investors negotiate. This is core m&a negotiation, and it's where a sell side m&a advisor earns their keep.

And if you're a minority investor, you should be looking to negotiate. And if you are the owners, the founders, or the management team of a company that's taking minority investment, you've got to understand that you are giving up some control on the biggest things if you're taking in any kind of real money, most often.

Sara MostafaYeah. And I'm seeing actually in the local San Diego market here, there's been a lot of consolidation among service industry businesses like HVAC and plumbing and so forth. And what's happening, which is a bit newer, is that the buyer is requiring the founders to stay on for longer periods of time, sometimes upwards of twenty-four to thirty-six months. And there's that kind of emotional toll of transitioning from ownership to being an employee, taking orders, and that is kind of an unspoken struggle sometimes in a lot of these transactions.

Corey KupferYeah, that certainly happens a lot. There was, again I happen to have just gotten back from the Echelon conference, so I'm referencing them a lot, and we appreciate Dan Sievert and team having us there. But they did some work, and again this happens to be in the financial services space, but they did some surveys on post-closing and what happened and the satisfaction levels of sellers. They looked at what sellers thought about the economics, the equity performance, all this stuff. I won't go through it all, but they had three categories, fell short, met expectations, and exceeded expectations. I will tell you the largest of the categories that was fell short, which is forty percent in this particular category, people said fell short of expectations, was autonomy and workload.

It wasn't the earnout, it wasn't the equity performance, it wasn't the deal economics, it wasn't client and team outcomes, it was autonomy and workload. I think, frankly, there's part of that that maybe is things buyers didn't do well in terms of creating and communicating that expectation. But I do think us entrepreneurs have a nickel in that dime, where it's just going from being the king or the queen to being in a bigger organization. There's just going to be some level of that dissatisfaction that comes along with that shift. So I'm not surprised by that number. In all my m&a experience, that human piece is the one people underprice the most.

Brian MeeganThat reminds me, I just saw a definition of entrepreneur, which is someone who spends eighty hours a week working for themselves to avoid working forty hours a week for someone else.

Corey KupferYes. That's classic. All right, Brian, why don't we hop in? I'm really curious as to what you have for us in our deal history segment that you kicked off last time. What do you got for us this time?

Brian MeeganWell, this time we're going to go back to the beginning of the twentieth century, to 1901. Actually the story begins in December of 1900, when eighty some American financiers and industry magnates got together on a cold night in New York City at the University Club on Fifth Avenue for dinner.

It was hosted by Andrew Carnegie, who came in and left early from the dinner, and his president, Charles Schwab, not to be confused with the Charles Schwab of wealth management fame, stood up to address the group and cast a vision of how steel companies, who had been fighting vigorously for profits as the US in particular was industrializing, could work better by combining together and creating a vertical integration from iron ore mines, all the way through rail, stamping companies and forges, to the production end of steel, to create a more efficient, more profitable enterprise. And of course he was casting the vision for what would become US Steel.

The key was that although the pitch was really for Carnegie to listen to, because this was something about which he was the key player in being able to make this vision occur, it's well suspected that Carnegie may have already known what was being said that night. And the real intended target was the guy sitting next to Charles Schwab, who was J.P. Morgan. He was so captivated by what was being told that he forgot to light his cigar for the hour that Schwab was speaking.

So afterward, Morgan brought Schwab in and said, you've got to talk to Carnegie, this is something we need to do. So as the story goes, Schwab took Carnegie out for a round of golf. Carnegie did not like to lose, ever, at anything. Schwab made sure that he did not beat his boss on that round of golf, and pitched this idea, and told him that Morgan was interested. So Carnegie went off and thought about it overnight and wrote with pencil on a little piece of paper, 480 million dollars. That was it.

He gave it to Schwab to walk over to Morgan. Morgan took it, said, I accept this offer, and wanted to make a meeting between Carnegie and Morgan. Morgan invited Carnegie over to his offices. Carnegie declined and said, why don't you come over to my house? So of course he walked over, fifteen minute meeting, the deal was done, they shook hands. Morgan allegedly told him, you're the wealthiest man in the world now, which wasn't quite true, but who's counting. Rockefeller was still wealthier than him, but it made him feel good in that moment. So US Steel then, in 1901, was created.

What do we take from this? Do you know your number? What's the psychology around knowing your number? Carnegie obviously had it in his mind what he was going to do next. So how do you know when you know? There wasn't a lot of lack of clarity as to what Carnegie was going to do once he sold. And then this process of pre-negotiation work. The groundwork was already laid for this thing. This didn't just happen on the surface. No doubt Carnegie and Schwab had talked about this vision, how it could work, who was going to be the necessary ingredient to make it work. Well, that's Morgan, setting up this big meeting, doing all this stuff before the deal comes together. I'll leave it for you guys to add anything else to that. But that's the deal in history.

Corey KupferLove that. I also heard you mention the conversation of vertical integration. One of the things I love is that it's so easy for smaller and medium sized middle market companies to think that's a whole different game. And it is, in some ways, but I think the lessons are true. We've had clients who have said, okay, whether it's the conversation of how can we increase revenue, whether it's control over distribution or manufacturing. There's a lot of ways, and obviously you can acquire the whole vertical integration, but maybe you can do it through more secure exclusive manufacturing or distribution agreements or joint ventures. There is a conversation of whether it's vertical or horizontal. I've got a story it prompted about a more horizontal one, maybe, but we should really look when we see these bigger deals, whether it's in history or currently, and say, is there something we can take from that that I can do in my industry or in my business? Even if it's not 480 million dollars, or these days 4.5 billion dollars or 45 billion dollars, I think there are opportunities in these lessons. That's the value of strategic advisory, pulling the lesson out of a deal of any size.

Okay, go ahead.

Brian MeeganI got a couple of other pieces from that. I'll do a shout out for using an intermediary. It wasn't going to be Carnegie with hat in hand going to Morgan, and Morgan wasn't going to go beg Carnegie to sell his company. It was that perfect intermediary. That was the deal team that was necessary in that deal, having somebody. You've got your M&A lawyers, you've got your investment bankers who can make that back and forth work. I do want to ask Sara this, but do you think he left money on the table? We all know when you say I accept that deal, you start to go.

Sara MostafaYeah, there's always some tidbit of remorse, but at the end of the day there could have been other benefits that were obtained that would not have been had he walked away.

Corey KupferYeah. And Brian, your clarity piece. Anybody who knows any of my content, certainly my authentic negotiating book, the first piece of my fundamental framework is clarity. So if you have a number like you talked about and you have clarity on what it is and somebody offers it to you, in a way there's some respect in that. One of the things I talk about in negotiating is taking your ego out of it, and just having clarity on what your number is. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. You can say, well, if he just accepted the first offer, maybe you left money on the table, why didn't he negotiate? On the flip side, he had clarity, and if that number was at or above what he was happy with, then what he was able to do was not have his ego engaged to say, I can't take a first offer, I've got to get more. He's getting what he wanted or more, so let's get the deal done, let's not slow it down. So there are a couple of ways that could be looked at.

But the intermediary thing, we get this question all the time. Us lawyers, obviously it's easiest for us to make a case you need a good lawyer, and by the way you do, and even on the other side of the transaction. In fact, we often get referred in by buyers who we don't represent, to represent sellers, because people are less aware and think that maybe a buyer would prefer less experienced counsel on the seller side so they can take advantage of a win. It's the last thing they want. I had a conversation about this with somebody recently who was on the buy side, and they were like, no, it decreases the chance the deal gets done. It doubles or triples the time, even if it does get done. I don't want to have to educate some local lawyer who doesn't know the industry. This is where a sell side m&a advisor and experienced deal counsel actually protect both sides of the transaction.

So when somebody says to us, hey, should I use a banker? I got an unsolicited offer, or why can't you guys, you guys know all the players in this space, why don't we just use you? I'm like, listen, we can give you insight, but we don't create a process. We understand the deal structure, we know about some of these players, but we're not out there doing this day to day as a business. This is not our profession to put deals together. We do it from time to time because we know people. But if you have any kind of real deal, the value of a good banker, the right one, is invaluable. So I love this intermediary comment you made, Brian. It's definitely key to good deal structuring.

Brian MeeganYeah, the number of times we use the banker on the business points, in that negotiation you've got lawyer to lawyer, and it always has to be lawyer to lawyer, we can't talk to the business team without the lawyer team. So when there's a business point that's best handled by the business team, I don't want to be involved with that piece. That's something that should be handled with that smaller group, as opposed to getting everybody on the call.

Sara MostafaI always advise clients entering a transaction to have developed basically a trusted team of advisors well in advance. Because you put all these expert minds together, you're going to end up with a better result than if you are counting on one person, especially one person who, for example, is a lawyer and can provide maybe good insight, but is certainly not an expert and couldn't provide the same level of service as a banker and a CPA and potentially a financial advisor. All of those different professionals provide such an important service at the end of the day, and totally are worth the cost if that's the concern.

Corey KupferAnd listen, whether it's with the bankers or lawyers, I had a situation, I'll keep it very vague because it's more current, where we just got into very tough negotiations. This was actually on a deal that had happened already, and the post situation, things that were done post that the sellers perceived limited their ability to hit their earnout, a bunch of things like that. We had an all party sit down with clients. And the buyer did the right thing. They assured that they'd be taken care of. It was funny because the CEO of the buyer, he was saying it in fun, but he was like, okay, yeah, I am committed to never having to have Corey on one of these calls again. In other words, what he was saying is, I want us to be able to figure this out based upon our relationship. This went in a direction I didn't want it to go. And he wasn't blaming me. He was just saying, hopefully we don't have to get lawyers involved again, because how did we let it get to this point?

And that was despite the fact that I'm not a litigator. But the point is, what that highlighted was that I was able to push for something. If anybody is going to be looked at like, we don't want them involved, what that means is that we pushed and got what we needed for the client, but they were able to maintain relationship. So I'd much rather have there not be animosity between the parties who are going to continue to work together. Whether it's the banker pushing for a particular business negotiated point, or the lawyer, part of what we do is we can float things, we can test things, we can take the heat for stuff, we can be the bad guys, and help the parties maintain relationship. Because it's a lot tougher if these things are getting negotiated directly, because it gets more personal. So that's definitely a benefit. We've certainly had a couple of those scenarios recently, and I have no issue whatsoever taking the heat, as long as we get the client where they need to be. And if we can do that while the parties maintain relationship, then that's great. That is the human side of managing acquisitions that doesn't show up in the deal documents.

Corey KupferAll right, so now, we've got Brian, and I love Brian's history segments. There's a second one we've done. I think they're just fun and they're interesting and they're informative. And so Sara got a little FOMO, a little jealous, whatever, over the last one. She said, Brian has a segment, I want to have a segment too. So Sara, what is your segment that we're adding into this roundtable, starting this one?

Sara MostafaYeah, I definitely did have FOMO there. So I'll be presenting a remarkable woman in business each quarter. I think that as far as we've come now in 2026, it's not spoken about enough how many women pioneers there are in business and some of the remarkable accomplishments they've made. So I'll kick it off today by talking about Josephine Esther Mentzer, better known as Estée Lauder. She was born in Queens, New York, from humble beginnings. I knew Corey would appreciate that.

So she was inspired. As everybody probably knows, she's a beauty mogul, in skincare and makeup. Everybody knows the name Estée Lauder. She was inspired by watching her uncle develop skin creams in her kitchen when she was young. He was a chemist. And so what she started doing is going to local beauty salons, where she had literally a captive audience in all the women sitting under the hairdryers. She would try to sell her uncle's products to these women. In the course of observing her uncle, she and her husband then started creating their own skin creams. There were four core products that they started trying to sell. She had her first big break in 1947 when Saks Fifth Avenue put in an 800 dollar order for her products. It quickly became very popular. She pioneered some marketing techniques, such as hands-on, trying products on prospective customers directly, and free gift with purchase, that started with her. And so by the sixties her business had expanded internationally. By 1995, they went public. And as of present time, Estée Lauder's annual net sales are about fifteen billion dollars.

Corey KupferWow. It's amazing. I love founder stories, period. It's one of the reasons why I'll give a shout out to the Acquired podcast, which I've gotten into recently, which I will warn you, because the person who turned me on to it told me these episodes are three to four and a half hours. And I'm like, are you kidding me? He's like, well, if you're traveling, you're on the treadmill, it's great. But it's so fascinating, because they go deep. I just finished the first of two multi hour episodes on Disney, talking about Walt Disney and the whole thing. So I love these founder stories. Obviously in that time, they're doing another one, seven or eight hours on Disney, picking up now from after Walt's death and what happened since then. There's so much that went on behind the scenes of these various companies and how they got there and the things that they did.

And there are certainly deals as well. I know, for example, Estée Lauder has been very active in M&A over the years. You mentioned that they went public. So for the purposes of this podcast, part of the journey is often deals, but even outside the deal context, I just love founder stories. And certainly when we highlight underrepresented groups in these founder stories, it's even better, because it's not just a bunch of guys who look like Brian and I who created companies.

Brian MeeganAnd Brooklyn didn't get its shout out in this one. It all started in a kitchen in Queens.

Corey KupferIn Queens. But yes, I am originally Brooklyn, but I did live in Queens for a little while. I did live in Forest Hills. And it's still New York City. Exactly. I love it. By the way, listeners, now that we have these segments, I think we have plenty of our own content, but if you have a deal in history you want us to look into and talk about, or a female founder story you want us to highlight, definitely let us know in the comments to the post. And if any of you listening are dealmakers with a story of your own, you can apply to come on the show at beaguestondealquest.com. We're definitely open to feedback and suggestions, and if you have other cool resources, we're open to that too.

In terms of anything else that happened this quarter, or that we're looking at and anticipating for Q3, anything else come to mind for either of you?

Sara MostafaWell, one thing I'm seeing a lot of down here in San Diego, with the big defense industry and the massive federal defense expenditures going on right now, is a lot of consolidation of defense contractors specifically acquiring smaller manufacturers and other types of businesses and integrating.

Brian MeeganYeah, right now I just did a quote in an article about the roll up, and Sara mentioned them, the HVAC and building materials companies. It was sort of interesting to me that the building materials roll up that started a while back had its origin from folks like Lowe's and Home Depot, who are very focused on the DIY and the small contractor, that they were trying to access those larger commercial purchasers out in the marketplace and kind of control where they were buying their goods from. And then some of these guys are now getting into the HVAC piece, which is less about, I mean, it certainly has that purchase flow, the actual products and things are still coming from building products type companies, but it has this added value of the service revenue, and those service contracts. That is one kind of moving back the other direction toward the residential and the smaller commercial end users who are running these contracts.

So that's something that's continuing to move, in addition to the wealth management. As we were talking about before we got on this podcast, it is September fourth today and people have awakened. I hope they all have a very nice long holiday weekend, but people are coming out of the woodwork all of a sudden again.

Corey KupferYeah. I think because Labor Day falls late this year. When it falls early, sometimes people wait till after the holiday weekend. But last week started August thirty-first, I think, was Monday, and it was like, okay, we're back, the summer's over. I'm sure they'll take a two day break here.

One of the things I wanted to share, and again totally anonymous, is that in some of my travels recently I sat down for dinner with a very successful founder who runs a company that has about 440 to 450 million dollars in revenue, so not enterprise value, in revenue. And he was looking at whether to go public or not, among other things. A friend of ours had put together a little brain trust of like four of us to meet with him. I didn't know him before that. Just to give him some time and help his thinking. So whatever level you're at, we always hit these dilemmas, and it's great. One of the things Brian and I love about being in Entrepreneurs' Organization is that you have people around you who've been on the journey and have the experience, and fortunately, this was through some EO contacts, who are very generous with their time as well.

So we gave him some time in this call, and he and I just connected at a level, because other people gave him good advice, but I was much more talking about the inner journey, which anybody who knows me knows about. And I took him through, in a separate meeting, my CPR process from my negotiating book, context, purpose, results. I won't get into the details of what that is, you can check out the book. The point is we had dinner and he had gotten very clear, based upon the work that he did out of what we talked about, and was super appreciative, that he's not going to go public.

And what I love about that is it's something that I really believe in. The way I describe it is, it's the equivalent of when you are dating somebody for a while, everybody's like, okay, when are you guys getting engaged? Then when are you getting married? When you get married, when are you having a kid? There's the equivalent in entrepreneurship. If you have the kind of company that has that kind of growth, it's like, how are you going to scale? You're going to raise capital? When are you going to exit? Are you going to go public? There's this automatic way of thinking that there's a path, whether that's dating, engaged, married, kids, or start a company, build it up, scale it, raise capital, find a way to exit, whether that's public or private.

And it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, if you are the entrepreneur, if you're not creating a business that is aligned with your values and what you want to achieve and what you want for your life and family and community, why are you doing it? What I really appreciated about this person is they got super clear. It could have been generational, listen, this person's done well, generational changing money. But it was so important to this person to have built what they built, to have the culture, to have provided opportunities for people who, in this kind of business, would not have had access or opportunities, and have risen up in the company and done really well. Not to give that up, and to continue to run that and still have passion for growing it.

Obviously going public is a whole different ball game. Pressures, outside, we talked about minority investors having rights. Forget it, you're a public company, the analysts and the quarterly, whatever. So I was excited that he got that clarity. I was touched that he appreciated that I played a role in it. But the bigger point is that, and this is true in all parts of our lives but certainly in business, there's no default path. There are all these external pressures. We encourage people to do deals, but I always ask, why are you doing a deal? I'm not going to automatically, deals are a tool, they're great, they can help, but you don't have to do a deal. You don't have to raise. None of these are have-tos. Understand what they are, make sure they're aligned with your values, vision, what you want to create for your employees, your customers, your clients, your community. Because we've seen post deal, post raise capital, post big exit, people not necessarily being happy with where they end up. So I'll leave you with that.

For me, it was a very poignant, touching evening. It was also great, my wife and I had dinner with the couple, and it was great to spend time with them. They're amazing people. It's such an example of somebody who resisted what could easily be a temptation, because of clarity on alignment with what they really wanted their life and the life of the people who work with them to be.

And I have huge respect for that. I encourage everybody to do that internal body of work to get clearer, and not to be pulled by external judgments and factors in their businesses and in their lives.

Sara MostafaRight. And it's not always about the next best thing if you're content where you are. Growth without a purpose is not very meaningful.

Corey KupferThere we go. Growth without a purpose is not meaningful. I think we'll leave it at that for this quarter. We look forward to joining you next quarter. As we mentioned, this is the second time we're doing this. It's evolving, we're open to suggestions. But one of the things I feel blessed about is that I've got partners who not only love helping people do deals, but also really are committed to people having true aligned success, whether that's doing deals or not doing deals. Although we have a lot of fun doing the deals, and we do a lot of them, it's a matter of whatever the right next step is, whether that's a deal or a different kind of deal or not.

I'm always reminded how much I love working with business owners and entrepreneurial clients and leadership teams who are evolving their companies, and we get to be startup, growth, and exit partners if that's the right route, or ongoing partners for clients. So we feel blessed. We appreciate all of our clients, we appreciate all of our referral sources, and we appreciate the audience of the DealQuest Podcast. And we will see you next quarter.