Questions about BridgePoint Air, answered in the words of the people who did the work. The engagement itself is on its own page.
How was the founder's value substantiated in the sale process?
It was a one-page account of his value written in the buyer's terms, not a model. A buyer of a firm like that prices two risks, client concentration and key-person dependency, and normally cures them with an earnout, an escrow or a retention agreement. We turned both around: the clients came because of him, and he was not leaving, so the dependency was the thing they were paying for. Most of the time went into that framing before any of it went into the number, and we worked the other equity holders' positions alongside his.
What was the hardest disagreement among the equity holders?
The details of the other holders' deals stay between them. The hardest person to move was actually the founder. His instinct was that the buyer held the cards because it was so much bigger, and a seller who underprices himself has already lost the room. So he had to see his own leverage before the buyer did, and that came first.
What was walked through with the founder to make his leverage credible to him?
The same account we later put to the buyer, him first. It set out what a buyer of a firm like his actually prices, client concentration and whether the business depends on one person, what normally cures each, and why a board roster does nothing about either, since a board dissolves at closing. Read that way, the things he thought were weaknesses were the reason the deal existed: the relationships were his, the book existed because of him, and he would still be there the day after closing.