E147: Arthur Petropoulos on Helping Companies Sell and Secure Capital through M&A

[00:00:00] Ronald Skelton: Hello and welcome to the How2Exit podcast. Today I'm here with Arthur Petropoulos. He is the managing partner at Hill View Partners, and we're going to have a great time today. Welcome for being on the show. Or thank you for being on the show. Thank you for being on the show, Arthur. 

[00:00:14] Arthur Petropoulos: All good Ron. I appreciate the time. Glad to be here. 

[00:00:17] Ronald Skelton: So many times you think I'd say that you think I'd get it right, but hey. So I always like to start off kind of the origin story. Tell us how you kind of got into M& A and we'll get into, part of the origin story. I will of course be what is Hill View Partners and what do you guys do, but to start with you kind of like, how did you come about this?

[00:00:34] How did you become a managing partner type of thing? 

[00:00:37] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, sure thing. And the two sentences on what we do and then I'll kind of start from the beginning and bring it back is, our firm, we help companies sell themselves. We help companies secure capital and going back now to me as a child, I was always fascinated by business and the history.

[00:00:53] I guess the intersection between business and history. My father used to read me history books, and it was always enlightening to know that, Amerigo Vespucci was selling pickles or Columbus was sailing to bring back spices or whatever, right? But there was always this reason, and if you dig into history, it was a mixture of a war and finite resources. 

[00:01:11] And so that thereby business in turn. And so growing up, I was always fascinated by the purchase of the sale or the growing of businesses, the financing of businesses. And the only people I knew who had hands in it were attorneys for the most part. And so I said, well you must have to go to law school.

[00:01:27] So I went to, I am an undergrad business degree and then went to law school after that. And then at law school kind of really figured out, I was reading case law of the mergers and acquisitions from the eighties and all the lawsuits and all these different structures. And you'd see these names of, Henry Kravitz or Steven Schwartzman, and you'd say, what are these companies? Or Apollo or whoever, and what do they do, and what's an investment bank?

[00:01:48] What's a private equity firm? How did these debt structures work? Or whatever it was. And so, as I learned that in law school, I really said, you know what? This is fascinating. I'd like to do this for a job. And I learned that that's more of kind of the investment banking role, if you will. And so I remember in law school, this is 2009 ish, as I was finishing, I'm calling up everyone for a job, the world's falling apart.

[00:02:10] And I, I ended up getting a position at a small investment bank. It was actually spun off from American express that was helping privately held, really family entrepreneur, smaller investment group owned companies, either sell themselves or do these structured financing type of transactions. And, I initially, I was a bit disappointed because I said, I wanted to do a billion dollar deals and I'll have to grow into that.

[00:02:32] But the neat part was when I got into that space, I said, this is fascinating because it was wildly inefficient. The way companies would sell for prices that were all over the map. There was, representation was real choppy. A lot of times people were selling things completely unrepresented.

[00:02:46] And so, it felt a bit like the Wild West. And so we did that at that firm for a little while. And then I left and went to a Kenner Fitzgerald and what was their internal kind of private equity firm that was buying companies. Our thesis was buying real estate services companies all over the country. We wanted to create a competitor to Jones and LaSalle or CB Richard Ellis.

[00:03:05] And we bought Grubbin Ellis out of bankruptcy. We bought Newmark Knight Frank. We pushed them together. And then we went around the country basically buying regional property management, appraisal, commercial brokerage firms, software companies, and kept pushing them into this public entity. And so it was fascinating, though, because on the other side of the table, you saw the same things where people were not represented, poorly represented, didn't really understand how the process facilitated, what the structure looked like.

[00:03:34] And so as much as we were on the counterparty in many ways, I felt as we were educating people on it. The last stint I had in New York was running corporate development for was a bigger business services company that we ended up selling. And at that point, I was about 30. I said, what's the next step?

[00:03:50] I can either, I think, keep going up that corporate ladder in the private equity or principal investment world. Or I could start Hill View Partners and, and which I'd always kind of wanted to start my own endeavor to focus on the area that I found most interesting. And so we started, Hill View Partners seven years ago to, focus entirely on the selling and the securing of capital for privately held companies, generating one to a 10 million in EBITDA primarily.

[00:04:16] Sometimes a little smaller, sometimes a little bigger, currently across industries. But really where our niche and specialization is kind of the complexion of ownership. So entrepreneurs, families, smaller groups of investors, a handful of guys or girls who own something and where there's not, private equity or venture capital already involved, we call it non sponsored largely or not institutionally capitalized.

[00:04:37] And it's a neat space to be in. And so that's kind of the origin story of me and how we kind of came from, thinking I'd be an attorney with an office here in Providence, Rhode Island, to now being a mergers and acquisitions advisor here with an office in Providence, Rhode Island.

[00:04:51] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, did you finish law school and pass the bar? Or did you move into mergers and acquisitions process way through?

[00:04:57] Arthur Petropoulos: So I finished law school a semester early. So I did in about two and a half years instead of three. I actually was intending initially to take the bar, but I mean, it was a real lousy time. And I hate to sound like an old man, but on this young generation, they don't realize how tough it was for that time period.

[00:05:13] And I remember getting the job, went into the interview, did the case study, and they said, all right, you start December 16th. And I said, well, I have finals up until the 20th, and then I was going to take the bar. And they said, listen, kid, I don't think you realize what's going on out here. That's when it starts.

[00:05:29] Be there or don't. Find another job. And so I said, huh, so the equal star beat will be there. And so I was able to come back and forth for that week to take finals, but I didn't take the bar. And if you ask my mother, she will, remind me about that every year, but why I should still do that. So someday I will be done.

[00:05:49] But as of now, not the case.

[00:05:51] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, I had one of those. You could do really good at a year, make tons of money in there. Like, when are you going to get a real job? But you can go take that bar. The reason I asked was it more than, credentials or anything because you finished law school.

[00:06:03] But the reason I asked more than anything is there is a growing trend. I'm noticing there's a lot of the guys in mergers and acquisitions. They went into it through law school and decided they didn't want to be a practicing attorney anymore. So even some of them took the bar and practice for a year or two, but there is a large percentage of, I wasn't a lawyer, now I'm doing this, right?

[00:06:23] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah. I mean, even going back to the, my parents are not very supportive that they kind of, they always were, but now they think they understand the ecosystem a little bit. Cause this realm of what we do is kind of on the shadows in a negative way, but just not something that's out there that same way that maybe real estate development or attorneys. 

[00:06:39] I mean, Lloyd Blankfein, the old CEO of Goldman, was an attorney. Brian Moynihan, who had Bank of America, he's an attorney or was an attorney. Sam Zell was an attorney. So look, I get into debates as to whether a JD or an MBA is better for kind of the framework of being entrepreneurial, but it certainly teaches you of the allocation of risk and what is, if investing.

[00:07:00] Is that some juncture kind of changing trading return for risk, understanding that risk allocation, which I think a legal degree allows for. And I think it's a very valuable skill set to have. 

[00:07:11] Ronald Skelton: It's interesting as I, I got approved into a, a part time like, evening law firm from one of the best part time schools around.

[00:07:18] And, I went to probably three or four classes and ended up in a, my first marriage ended up in divorce.

[00:07:24] Funny thing is a, I had to step out. I couldn't afford the alimony and tuition and everything else. I'm in California back then too. Basically I had to make big paycheck, big paychecks to the ex for a little while. And, so while I was taking the break on that, because I couldn't afford both, I got the opportunity to go sit in the office of the type of attorney that I wanted.

[00:07:43] I had a consulting gig. I was in IT and did project management and, all kinds of stuff for the IT world. And I got into the one company and they were looking around for a desk for me. I said, there's two desks in the IP attorneys room that he's not using. He has his desk and there's two empty.

[00:07:57] Can I go sit with him? Cause I, I might go back to law school and I kind of want to see what he does. I won't bug him too much, but I'll just manage my project from in there and I'll get to chat with him every once in a while. And after watching what he did and see, I just couldn't realize I would ever have to sit there and do that every day.

[00:08:09] It looks so boring. I thought you're going to see new inventions and he did paperwork for 40 hours, 50 hours a week. Constantly doing research and paperwork, research and paperwork. Never really talked to humans. I don't know if that's the way all IP attorneys are, but that was not. 

[00:08:23] Arthur Petropoulos: I think, yeah. Look, all I say to people is that I think we all like different flavors of ice cream. It's just important to find yours, whatever that is. 

[00:08:33] Ronald Skelton: I'm glad he did what he does and I'm glad there's, I'm glad they're out there. But I thought that's where I was going. Until I sat there and watch somebody do that day in and day out. And I was like, yeah, I don't think I want to do that.

[00:08:42] So I didn't go back. I went and got my master's degree in marketing instead. But,I was looking some way to get out of I. T. So I was either going to go go back to school and go to law school or, get a, something to help my entrepreneurial spirit. So I went the entrepreneurial way.

[00:08:55] So one of the things you said in there, it was interesting in your intro was, unrepresented or poorly represented. I get a lot of questions all the time about people who are like, hey, how do you find off market bills? And I have to stop them and go, oh, before you do that, understand that if you're go to work with somebody who's off market, you're now the advisor and educator also. 

[00:09:14] And they're like, what do you mean? I said, they don't know what an LOI is. They don't know a lot of the process there. They're running their business day in and day out, and you're going to be speaking a different language to them.

[00:09:23] So now you got to be there, put on that hat or find somebody to put on that hat. Coming from you, the potential buyer, there's going to be some level of skepticism or mistrust when you start passing them documents they've never seen before. 

[00:09:35] No, I was leading into probably what you're going to say is, what's out there? I mean, when you go out to meet some of these business owners, they've been running their business for years. It's a family owned or friend owned small, like you said, non sponsored business.

[00:09:50] What's the education process, I mean, how long does it take to get these guys to truly understand this as something different or you guys just take over all that or? 

[00:09:59] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah. I mean, I think that, the interesting thing about a lot of companies is that they have good representation for many facets of their business.

[00:10:06] But this is always an area that I think particularly in the size range that we work in that is not well represented. And so you have,every company we work with typically has an attorney that they trust. They have an accountant that they trust and it's a good thing. I think, when they bring them to the table and the, early innings of the conversations, they certainly, there's things we do that they understand that we build a trust with them because the client will look to them to say, Hey, this guy seemed all right.

[00:10:32] These people seem all right. and so getting that, that of confidence. But there is an educational component to it and that's our job and I think, you're not good at explaining things if you confuse everybody. Like the purpose of it is not to show how smart we are. The purpose is to allow our clients to understand what we do and why it's going to help and what the steps of that process are.

[00:10:53] And so we've really tried to kind of isolate the different steps of the exercise. What are the different, I think not pain points, but we're kind of the more challenging elements going to be. What are some of the easier parts? Where is going to be the most risk in the process? Where's not? Where's going to be where we see the outcomes?

[00:11:12] And so when you explain all of these things, I think in kind of digestible chunks of information, and it's a very streamlined process, people get it. Because these are inherently smart people because they've run businesses for long times and have been profitable, so they know how to do it.

[00:11:25] But it's always similar as we learn about their businesses. We're an outsider kind of coming in to something that they know on a very granular level, and they're usually excellent. They're communicating to us. What are the people, processes, products that they provide or services? We try to do the same thing on our side.

[00:11:41] And so we say, look, here's the road map. These are the steps. Within each of these steps. Here's a little more granular explanation, and then we dig into it more. But I think it's our job to do that educating on in every one of these iterations and to be clear and simple without losing detail is always the magic.

[00:12:01] Ronald Skelton: I see you have a full spectrum. I was looking at your client. You have a page on your website that shows all the different clients. A lot of advisory firms they kind of stick to one area, medical practices or whatever. You've got a really broad range from financial services to real estate.

[00:12:17] I see something on here it says jewelers. But I'm just saying there's tech services in here. There's, I mean, you've got a full range, right? I know why some of the people that I interview here, they specialize in certain industries is because it's the industry they came from most of the time. They know that. You've built a broader range here.

[00:12:33] So what are the things that are unique to certain industries that can you think of? And there are certain, I know there are certain things about SaaS that's unique. But, what are some of the things that are just universal across all of them?

[00:12:47] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah. And that's, and I appreciate that because I think what we specialize our firm relative to kind of complexion of ownership, in size of business.

[00:12:55] And so we've always found that called the one to a hundred million dollar transaction or the one to $10 million EBITDA company. And sometimes these transactions are bigger or smaller, but that space ownership and where ownership is privately held, where it's owned by an entrepreneur, a family, a small group of investors, that is kind of the avatar, if you will, of the clients that we work with, because there's a similar education process as a similar exercise of going out to reach, to doing our research. There's a similar kind of counterparty, cohorts in terms of search funds, family offices, private equity, large strategics.

[00:13:30] And so what we found is that, on the very early stage of businesses, let's say it's venture capital. This is a company that has an invention, but no revenue. I do think there's a need for industry specialization because you're trying to get believers in something, right? I think when you get to a very, very large company, these billion dollar transactions, I think there's a certain less kind of subject matter expertise, but more relationship driven that, if you want to get shell to buy a multi billion dollar company, those relationships usually go decades. 

[00:14:03] And that's kind of the mainstay of main wall street business. But in our space, what I find is that the entire process is very similar. Now we do have to have some specialized knowledge in specific industries, which we do.

[00:14:15] So if we say, it's a SaaS business. We're looking at recurring revenue. If it's a widget manufacturer, we're looking at the unit economics of the widgets on a gross profit level. If it's a business services company we're saying, what's the customer acquisition cost. And so there are certain metrics and certain flavors that kind of pertain or are more pertinent to, one industry or another.

[00:14:36] But the overarching process and the way we go about it, the way we funnel down the interested parties and negotiations, the diligence process, we find within those kind of field goal posts of the size and complexion is incredibly similar. And that's why we've always said we want to do that kind of across the spectrum for all businesses that kind of meet the size and complexion parameters.

[00:14:58] Cause we've had success at all of those and find the similar, they're much more similar than may initially, strike the eye. Cause what I will say is, let's say a company makes $2 million in profit a year. It's not doing it on the cost of capital and it's not doing it basically selling on price.

[00:15:14] So there's something proprietary about it. And so every business we represent has something proprietary that allows it to operate and profitably and intelligently in a giant industry. And we isolate that idiosyncratic component of the business as we kind of negotiate and market it. And so that's, a lot of the magic of any company we work with, irrespective of industries, what is the magic element?

[00:15:38] What's the secret sauce? Cause a lot of the other gears and levers and pulleys are very much the same. 

[00:15:44] Ronald Skelton: You have to most pull that outta some people, right? Because I, we were doing a roll up in the marketing space and we would be interviewing marketing agencies doing between one and $25 million.

[00:15:53] And we'd ask them, what's the one thing you're better than at anybody else in? And they're like, we're good at everything. Yeah, no, you're not. There's one thing that people come to you for and then they accept you doing the other stuff 'cause it just fits. There's something you're better at than most.

[00:16:07] And a lot of times you just have to help hunt that down. You find that the case or you think most of your clients know exactly what their secret sauce is? 

[00:16:14] Arthur Petropoulos: I would say most of them have a sense for it. They kind of have a thumb on. This is what makes us better. I think the characterization or the crystallization of that narrative is a lot of what we help with in the early innings of an engagement.

[00:16:27] And so we talk through it. I asked people, and I'll ask the same question 50 times, but slightly different, slightly different, just to kind of chisel that diamond and understand it. And by the end of it, we say, here's how we would characterize your company, to, I think, optimally presented to the audience.

[00:16:44] And the client will say, you know what, that's exactly what we knew. It's exactly how we would talk about it in many more words, but that's the perfect kind of paragraph that describes it. So I always say they, they know there's something special. They oftentimes have a good kind of heat meter as to where that resides in their company.

[00:17:03] But it's our job to kind of crystallize the narrative and be able to communicate it clearly. 

[00:17:08] Ronald Skelton: It's funny you said, you asked the same question from different angles, 30, 40, 50 times. I do that a lot when we're talking to business owners. Not because, it's just because you get a, a better picture, on any complex question.

[00:17:20] When you ask somebody a question, they're going to give you between a five second and a one minute to two minute answer. And a lot of times the question was way more complex than that, right? Like,what's your secret sauce? You're going to crystalize it down to a single thing, but to get the story of it takes a few different iterations.

[00:17:40] And quite honestly, I was joking around and said, didn't you ask that last time? Yeah, you were in a different place and a different mood last time. I'm going to ask you again, because you're going to come at it from a different angle. 

[00:17:49] Arthur Petropoulos: There's a lot of truth to that. I mean, even if you say, what's the biggest challenge, what's the biggest not challenge.

[00:17:53] You'll get different answers, different situations. So, at the end of business is a, is a human thing. And so it's all comprised of humans and therefore, good, bad or otherwise it's a lot of conversation, a lot of dialogues, a lot of relationship building in these engagements. 

[00:18:09] And, I think that's getting that kind of level set of transparency, honesty, that's our key. And that's the kind of trust we want to build with all of our clients. Cause it does ultimately get the best results. 

[00:18:22] Ronald Skelton: And I imagine as an advisor, you have the same thing as us, as buyers have. It takes a little while to build rapport deep enough where they're going to give you like the real deep answers, right?

[00:18:35] On day one, if I ask you what you're, on the first call within the first hour, if I ask a company what their biggest pain points are or what their biggest concerns are going in the future, I get a different answer. And then I do right before we cut the LOI or, right before we start heading into due diligence. 

[00:18:50] When we've got a deep rapport, we know who each other are, we know we're serious, we're both moving forward together. Then we come back with that question of, okay, what's your biggest concerns at this point? 

[00:18:59] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, I think it's, it's congruent with all human communication, right?

[00:19:03] If you want to a date with someone for the first time and your first question you ask them is what's your deepest, darkest fear in this world? Like it's not, they're either not going to answer it or they're going to think you're odd or whatever. So it's like the conversation has to progress from kind of walking to running likewise in any engagement of.

[00:19:19] Ronald Skelton: They might run in this day and time. If you ask somebody what your deepest, darkest, fear in the world is, they probably think you're a mass murderer. 

[00:19:26] Arthur Petropoulos: The point is that you can't start, I used to see in this business, because when I worked on it, when I talked to other people, you'd always kind of see people's approaches to client interactions.

[00:19:35] And I see it now with private equity firms that we've talked to. So we'll always kind of have the initial conversations of, and as we kind of joke, separate the prospects from the suspects. But as we bring someone into the conversation to talk to the client, it's still a broad spectrum of people's demeanors, temperaments, what they ask, what they don't ask.

[00:19:54] And, you see though that the, the best business people are oftentimes the best communicators. And so I think that that's a pretty consistent theme across most verticals. 

[00:20:03] Ronald Skelton: So now you've got the secret sauce, you kind of know what they're, what's unique about them and what really is going to drive value for the potential acquirer.

[00:20:12] How much does culture come into play and culture fit? There's a matchmaking process between buyer and seller as to understanding that, culture X isn't going to fit with culture Z, or it is. 

[00:20:25] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, there's an element of that. I think when we think of deals or transactions, we always say, what are the fundamentals of the company?

[00:20:32] So from a dollars and cents perspective, what is the access that the company has? So whether it's a customer, certain industry verticals, and then what is the proprietary element or the special aptitude of the business? When we think of all of that, those are a lot of kind of the hard qualitative and quantitative elements of the business.

[00:20:50] And then around that usually is the wrapper of kind of culture and demeanor. It's not, I think if you have a company in Oklahoma, run by, I think people that enjoy that kind of a demeanor, if you introduce them to a hard charging New Yorker, it may not resonate that well. But so you always have to kind of balance that.

[00:21:11] And now I've seen people from, cause I will say like we try to take a no jerk policy, whether it's for clients or whether it's for people we bring into deals. And so, I will say there's plenty of companies we've sold from, the Midwest or the great plains to people in New York that have been perfectly fine, but I do think that there's some, you'll kind of put out the information to a few people, and if you get a call back saying I want to know what it is right now and this. And I said, listen, I know it's probably not going to go the best way here.

[00:21:37] So, there is an element to the demeanor and culture, both from kind of the buyers and the business owners, as well as I think just thematically throughout the company. 

[00:21:46] Ronald Skelton: I've seen one or two fail. To turn it the other way, I've seen a wall street type, full suit tie every day, and this is from one of our advisors.

[00:21:55] It was,I only got to talk to them through the show and through,I reached out to the seller that, I guess you would call it, the guy that's reselling it now. To make it short,Wall Street type buys a moving company out of Dallas and, shows up, doesn't like the, the office space. Bought the thing, but doesn't like the office space.

[00:22:13] Moves everybody to a fancier office, basically shows up in a suit and tie. And now, all his workers are showing up to what looks more like a wall street war room. Big, huge oak table to set out. Fancy, kitchens and, and all his blue collar workers, probably half of them are either on parole or been in parole at some point in their life. 

[00:22:30] They do background checks and stuff like that, of course, but these guys, they move both industrial and residential, large residential stuff, load boxes in the semis. They're just not, Harvard educated guys. Boss shows up every day, suit tie and wants them to go to a fancy boardroom.

[00:22:47] They ate him alive. They basically couldn't communicate with him. Couldn't, get things done. And he ended up selling it again later. I only got into it because somebody on the show brought it up and I was like, well, maybe I'm interested. So I was in Dallas, or willing to go back to Dallas at that point.

[00:23:00] So I talked to him. And, unfortunately I've, after more learning more and when you get somebody that's really distraught, how much of what they're telling you is your frustration and how much of what they're telling you is like the way it is. But, he sold me away from buying his business after talking to him two or three times, but that culture fit does matter.

[00:23:19] Arthur Petropoulos: It comes down to respect. I think that, money doesn't buy you respect in this world. I think it's, the way you go into a situation. So we've sold companies that have been very blue collar companies thinking, asbestos remediation, things like that. Two people that have been ex wall street guys and girls who are, call it a little more polished and a little more, well dressed, whatever.

[00:23:40] But they've come in, but I have seen these people come in, they're on site at the big jobs. They're working later than everybody. They're in there earlier than everybody. And over time, that builds a level of respect that they might recognize that, Hey, we're different kinds of people that we do different things in this world, but the respect is earned.

[00:23:59] And I've seen it quite the opposite way where I've seen a software company filled with, U-Pen engineers, be bought by a guy who sold a construction company and now wants to own a software company. And he comes in and he's gruff and whatnot. But there's a certain level of intellectual curiosity about the gentleman and he learned the business and he wanted to know every single element where, these differences in personality become fun.

[00:24:22] But they, if the respect is earned. So I think it's like in anything in business or in life. You can't walk into anything. You get more by serving than commanding and I don't care what the net worth discrepancy is in a situation. You must find a way to serve and thereby earn the respect of whoever it is that you want to earn the respect from.

[00:24:44] Ronald Skelton: I have another friend who just finished law school. He took the bar of the first time, didn't make it, but that's not a normal. But he invested in, him and another guy invested in Nevada construction company. And I get on the phone with him he's like, Oh my God, these guys fight constantly.

[00:24:56] They're at each other's throat. And I think we almost had a fistfight on one of the construction sites. And I was like, yeah. I grew up around construction, yeah, that's normal. That's just how they interact with each other. You need to be a little bit more of a hockey coach, a little less of an attorney. We'll put them in their corner, give them something to do, far from each other on their job site and they'll calm down and be really good friends afterwards.

[00:25:15] And he's like, really? I was like, yeah. If you get them separated for 15 minutes, most of the time grown adults will actually come to their own senses out of the heat of the moment and go back. So you know, he's talking to me later, he's like, they're doing it again. That's just part of what you're going to do it.

[00:25:26] You bought a construction company. You bought a company where they, they do move dirt. Basically they have a bunch of heavy equipment moving dirt and dump trucks and all that stuff. And those guys clash a little bit and you got to learn how to be a little more, like I said, be a little more of a hockey coach and a little less of an attorney.

[00:25:40] Arthur Petropoulos: I knew a guy, an old wall street guy that I'd met, that he owned, aluminum smelting plants in other countries. This guy was on the floor, walking through everything with everybody. And there was, and he was there early and he was there late and he had, he got the respect. And so I just, it's the same way that when you joined a basketball team or when you grew up, you'd say, how do you get respect?

[00:26:01] You go out there and you take the beatings with everybody else. And then they say, okay, you're one of us here. 

[00:26:06] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, I told him you can't do this overwhelmed thing because when you get their respect, you just have to step, step up, stand, get in between them and tell, you go over there, you go over there, you take command of the situation.

[00:26:14] After you do it two or three times, they'll realize it and you'll have command over the whole thing. You can't be, oh, my God. What are you guys doing? 

[00:26:21] Arthur Petropoulos: But people have a, and I don't know if it's just, it won't get into my beliefs on our ancestral heritage, but people smell weakness.

[00:26:29] Ronald Skelton: Oh yeah. 

[00:26:29] Arthur Petropoulos: And whether it's negotiating a deal or, face to face combat, people smell fear. And so you have to be, whatever you're going to do in this world, you have to do it. No half measures. 

[00:26:39] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. Let's talk about the, I see you guys have a really cool process in here.

[00:26:43] One of the things you have on there is six traps you avoid. So what led up to, like identifying the six traps and the let's cover some of them. So those listening can, you can get the idea of things they need to avoid. 

[00:26:56] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, sure. So we always like to define, I think there's two ways to think about either marketing or communicating the business.

[00:27:05] And so we used to think of it with the clients we were representing. We would say, we can tell the world how great they are and what magical things they can accomplish. But what always resonates is what pain do they solve? What problems do they avoid?

[00:27:19] And so if I'm representing a company that does brownfield dirt remediation for, for new apartments. If I say it will take half as much, it will cost a third, and your development will be on track 50 percent faster. Those are all avoidance of pain. It's the aversion of loss. It's okay. These are the real pains. If you solve them for me, I think, I do think people appreciate that, or it's just more visceral and tangible than if I said, if you hire this company to do your dirt, you'll be five times happier.

[00:27:50] Like it's, a hundred percent. But, from our perspective, we've always said, let's suss out here and kind of extract what are the pain points in the exercise that we've seen historically and solve for those. And so when we think of those, we've always said, it's first an area of kind of focus where, there's not a lot of companies like ours that focus on this kind of size and complexion.

[00:28:15] I think there's just a means of process. And so even for those that are, and there's a couple of big national competitors that we go against, but their models are very different where they say, Hey, let's have a $50, 000 retainer. And then we're going to send your information to this. 20, 000 person database.

[00:28:30] We're going to just wait for the phone to ring where our approach has always been proactive. We do the research. We reach out to the company specifically that we know are going to have an interest and then boil that down. And that gets into the next element, which is time. We say, by virtue of being proactive, not reactive, that 18 to 24 month process, we boil it down to six months and we have offers within a hundred days.

[00:28:51] And so again, we say focus. We say process orientation. We say time. And then the other ones, it's really distraction. And so what happens a lot of times when someone wants to sell their business is the representation will say, great, give us these 50 pages worth of information that I've listed out. 

[00:29:10] I want to know, 10 years ago, you know how many personal candy bars got pushed through the operating expenses of the company? And it starts to overwhelm and they say, man, like this is like a dental exam. And so we've always been cautious to say, how much information do you really need to have out there to extract the truest approximation of what the offer is? 

[00:29:30] Because perfection is the enemy of progress. You can solve all the problems, but the patient's dead. And so you have to say, let's get the crux of the information out there and talk to people and bring them to the table. And then a lot of these elements are going to be in formal diligence, but formal diligence is when you already have a deal that struck that you already know the terms that everybody's already, working towards the finish line at that point.

[00:29:53] And so we don't like to do an egregious amount of kind of prediligence. We do it an intelligent amount to get our arms around to be able to communicate, but there's a limit there as to not over tax the client when you're trying to do the exercise, because what happens oftentimes we used to see it historically is they hire someone, that person then starts just pounding them with questions.

[00:30:14] And then all of a sudden they're not paying attention to the business or they're distracted to a degree. And so as they're trying to sell the business, the performance slips, and then that makes it harder to do the thing. And so it becomes this bad kind of self fulfilling cycle. And so we've always said we want 10 or so hours of a client's time before we have offers.

[00:30:31] So five hours or so getting us information, another five hours when we have zoom meetings kind of right before letters of intent, but that's it. And then we'll tackle the rest of the, T's and I's when we're in diligence that are not going to be, I think material to the term structure or any of the other variables there.

[00:30:47] And then lastly, I guess, second to last, I always say discretion by virtue of us doing the outreach. We're talking to people on an anonymous basis about the company. They're all signing NDAs and therefore 20, 000 people don't know there's something for sale. And someone might say, well, it's anonymous when it goes out there too.

[00:31:02] But I said, is it really that anonymous? If I say it's the biggest,lead paint remediation company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, right? I mean, five words and Google finds the company. And so we try to always characterize in a way that, that does not. And so if it's a window distribution company, it's building materials.

[00:31:20] There's ways of characterizing certain things. If certain software that bleeds into a particular industry, we're not going to say it's the biggest software company that services satellite dish installation companies in the Tucson, in the Arizona metro area.

[00:31:33] There's a way to communicate clearly that we can control by virtue of our process. And so things stay discreet. And I'll tell one funny story. There's, we sold a company that was actually, we do, business all over the country, some international, but we sold a company that was based right where we're based here in Rhode Island. Owned by someone I grew up knowing and was friendly with who lives near me.

[00:31:56] And so I said to our team, I said, if we blow the discretion on this one, we have to move, because we're going to hear about it forever. And so we were able to do the whole process. And every, the only time anyone knew this thing was sold was after the closing, while the business was operating everywhere around us.

[00:32:11] And so that was kind of a good proof of concept. But I tie it all back here is finally all of these variables together yield the best outcome. And so you said, okay, there's focus. You're a proactive process. You're not distracting people. It's a discrete process. And ultimately that yields outcomes that are materially better than either unrepresented or poorly represented or even not poorly represented, but not as well as we do it.

[00:32:41] Ronald Skelton: It's interesting as I think I read at least probably once or twice a week. Or maybe even more often than that. I mean, business descriptions for businesses to sell from brokers. And I know exactly which one it is before I even look it up. Cause I've interviewed so many people and I know, a good one was one of the competing podcasts, a big one, one of the biggest podcasts probably there is in the business space, is for sale right now.

[00:33:02] I don't know if it's sold or not yet, but I think they're wanting like 15 million, which is like 14 X their revenue. Anyway, you know their profit, which is crazy, but I get it. I know what he's guys up to but, by reading the description, it's like they detailed it. So it's a daily show it had, it's had this many guests, in this mini episode. I was like, there's only one that fits the criteria, right?

[00:33:21] Arthur Petropoulos: And you gotta be careful because it's not just, oh I don't want people to know it's for sale who are other buyers, but if you don't think that the competitors to your business are on all these mailing lists, they would like nothing better than to call up all of your clients and say, they don't even care anymore.

[00:33:37] They're going to sell the business, and start sprinkling poison everywhere. So it's incredibly important that these things that the narrative, just like the narrative that we go out and sell a business, the narrative of that a business has been sold is one that needs to be. Handled appropriately and delicately as well.

[00:33:52] Ronald Skelton: When they came across my table yesterday or the day before, was an aquarium for sale. And one of the features that listed is that you can walk underneath the shark tank. And I'm like, I've been in one of those, like how many of them have that feature? It's probably the one in one of the towns I've lived in.

[00:34:06] And they like, the square fit match. It talked about being right up against the river. I like, that's gotta be the one I know. And I'm not going to say it because I'm about, I'm going to interview the broker that owns it because I know him. Know him through Twitter and some other stuff. So I don't want to call him out on this, but you know, I'm pretty sure I know exactly which one it is with that just by reading two features on there.

[00:34:22] It's got a special events. You can have dinner. You're going to have dinner with the sharks. There's actually a place to set underneath the shark tank where it's a big poly tube. You walk on as a big, setting area in the middle. So you can actually put dinner tables down there during events and stuff.

[00:34:36] You can sit there and eat dinner while sharks are swimming all the way around you. And, that said, if I bet, if I Google,how many aquariums have a, a tunnel going underneath the shark. So you can just walk through them. There's probably four or five, maybe one or two.

[00:34:50] It's not only the competitor side of it, right? It's the employees now, right? How many of my employees are going to get, fear of change and want to leave, and you're going to have turnover. I always have to say, I've got a lot of listeners in Europe.

[00:35:01] You're going to have people leaving. Turnover in Europe's revenue. Like you're not going to have higher turnover. And I'm like, I got a lot of people that come on the show from Europe, you're not going to have higher revenue. You're going to have higher, people are going to leave. You're going to lose a lot of employees just because of the uncertainty of what's going to happen in their future.

[00:35:14] Arthur Petropoulos: You get the opportunity in business to make decisions and to communicate things when you want to, or when you have to. And it's always better to do it when you want to. And so that's our job is that, I think there are some brilliant elements to our processes, but a lot of the results are the result of doing a million little unexceptional things exceptionally well.

[00:35:33] Just a little more care about every element of the process, a little more care about the discretion, the distraction, the communications, and ultimately all of those things being incrementally better yields a result that's materially better. But I think you're right.

[00:35:47] Ronald Skelton: So one of the questions I have is that matchmaking service when you, I call it that, but you got a client, you ran through everything and you're like, okay, we're going to reach out. We're going to outreach to highly selected potential acquirers. Is that just something that I mean you guys, just from your clients list, you probably looked like there was 50 or 60 just on that page alone. Is that just something from experience you guys look at or do you guys use tools like Crunchbase and all the other stuff out there? To say who's acquired company like this? Is it a gut feel because you've just been in the space long enough?

[00:36:17] Arthur Petropoulos: I think the, at this juncture, it's been a hundred plus clients and we've obviously listed a good chunk of them there, but we like to think it's the ideal or the optimal balance of art and science.

[00:36:27] And so we have our own internal database of thousands of companies that we've talked to and had interactions with over the years, we've been doing this. Cause I've been, in the company has now been seven years, but doing it another eight before that. So 15 years of that. Then we have external databases.

[00:36:43] And so, some of them are, the cap IQs, the pitch books are the ones that people be familiar with, but there's a bunch of others that we get good information from as well. And then we do our own kind of proprietary research. And so we have, we'll have the associates at our team just going out there and reading and reviewing different companies and different private equity firms, different platform companies.

[00:37:04] They have understanding what they're looking for. And so when you combine kind of the internal databases, the external databases, our own research, then you have a good kind of critical mass. And I think within that, then there's a feel element to it. To say, Oh yeah, we've worked with these guys before, and I know they were really itching to do this, or these guys just raised this fund. Or, Oh, I talked to her the other day, her family office was really looking for.

[00:37:26] So there's, there's a mixture of it. I think the important part though is, to get a very broad spectrum of data points. And so that's why, the challenge we'll see sometimes is if you're dealing with a business broker, let's say you might get some search funds that get shown in a deal. 

[00:37:41] And you're dealing with an investment bank, you might get some publicly traded companies that will get shown a deal, but there's not many people that showing deals to both. And that's what we do is kind of run the whole spectrum. So search funds, independent sponsors, family offices, lower middle market, private equity, big private equity with platform or portfolio companies. Publicly, large privately held corporates, publicly traded corporates.

[00:38:00] And so you run that whole spectrum. You do the research kind of within each cohort of that spectrum, and you have all the conversations and you can kind of handicap probabilities as to who's going to respond and how they're going to respond, but that's not always how it ends up. And so,we've had certain situations where I said, this is the person that's going to buy this.

[00:38:18] And I've been right. Now there's been certain situations where I've had an initial conversation where someone has interest by saying, I just don't know if I get a good feel here. And they ultimately are the one in good feel in terms of their interest level. And so you have to iterate because it's not like selling a house.

[00:38:34] In terms of efficiency of price. So if you sell, a house on Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, Rhode Island, if you sell it yourself, or if you get a real estate broker to sell it, the price is going to be different, but it's not going to be 50%, 60%, 70 percent different. It might be 10, 15 percent one way or the other on characterization and relationships, stuff like that.

[00:38:53] And look, I know there's probably more variants that I don't mean to understate the importance of an intermediary there. But within our business, you could talk to five people and you could get a price of a dollar, $2, $3 and 50 cents, right? Like you can get a wide variety and that's only in price. Then you look at structure.

[00:39:12] Then you look at transition periods, then you look at what happens to the stakeholders. And you say, there's a lot of variables here and a lot of moving parts. And so I don't want five data points. I want 50 data points because when I have that, you look at the regression line or the, the target with the bullet holes and however you want to look at it, but you can see kind of where they landed and you create like a matrix of sorts where we say, Okay, here's our different variables.

[00:39:35] Here's where everybody came in and allows us to negotiate each variable to optimally find the right, the right person.

[00:39:41] Ronald Skelton: How much does seller's intent come into play? What I mean by that is did they intend on staying? Did they intend on going? Were they willing to stay for a while? Do they have medical reason why they're selling and they can't stay?

[00:39:50] I mean, there's some protection of legacy, protection of family values, protection of employees. There's a lot of, how the brand. People have their personal identities tied to these companies. How much does that come into play in your matchmaking is okay.

[00:40:05] The seller needs to, or wants to do X, Y, and Z. And this class of buyers probably going to be best for that. 

[00:40:12] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, that's always a part of the discussion. Now what you want to do is on the front end of the conversation with your client, understand how rigid any of these needs are. So if someone says, I need to be out of the business within three months. We'll say, what if it was a year?

[00:40:28] What if it was six months? And you get feedback where someone says, no, this is a thing that's happening in my life that necessitates this. Or they say, look at the right price. Maybe I'd hang around longer. If we could kind of taper off that involvement. And so once we have a sense of that, we always say we want to go out to the market and kind of have a wishlist, right?

[00:40:46] Where this is the ideal situation and we won't have a wishlist relative to price. We never like to put a price on anything. We want the market to put their best foot forward and create a competitive environment, but relative to structure, how much is that closing? How much is over time? Relative to the transition requirements and relative to what you alluded to as a stakeholders.

[00:41:03] The employees sticking around, the building that they have, the community they're involved with, whatever it is. We want to communicate very clearly. Here would be our ideal situation. And then the price is, what's the old Howard Hughes quote? How much is enough? Just a little more. And so you say, whatever, that's where we're going to make a market.

[00:41:22] But, by virtue of doing that, you at least kind of set the parameters out for the dialogue. But it is important. And I think the different clients, it's of different importance to different variables, but,there's some things that are just very challenging to accomplish. And there's some things that I think are more down the strike zone.

[00:41:38] So if someone says, I want to sell the business and at the closing, I want to vanish into the, the midnight sun. I say that's going to be real difficult, but if someone says, I'd love to be full time for 90 days and then kind of be available for three months thereafter, I said, okay, we can work with that and figure that out.

[00:41:54] But they are all variables that must be discussed and highlighted and communicated throughout the process.

[00:42:00] Ronald Skelton: Before we get to the end here. I don't want to overstep the fact that you guys actually do capital sourcing and structuring also. So let's jump into that just for a little bit, because that's part of the mergers and acquisitions.

[00:42:11] A lot of times if you're trying to raise capital, it may be because you're looking to acquire somebody else, or you just, want to grow before you sell. There's a lot of reasons why they tie that, that ties into the narrative of what we're talking about. Discuss what you guys do inside of that.

[00:42:25] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, so i'd say about 75 percent of our business is the selling of businesses and the exits of businesses. About 25 percent is capital and because It's somewhat idiosyncratic situations. And so you could have a company that had a big bank, that doesn't want to work with them or they don't want to work with the big bank anymore.

[00:42:42] And so they need a better bank. That's a better fit for their situation and growth model. And so we'll find kind of a new relationship there. We have short term situations where someone says, I can't get a bank loan right now, but I know I have this plan in place that within 24 months I will be traditionally bankable.

[00:42:59] So if we can verify that we believe that, and kind of help them with the narrative, then we can find shorter term kind of non bank debt to bridge these situations. To your point for acquisitions, we've worked with clients before that say, Hey, I own two companies, but I know 10 of, 10 others of the same stuff that's for sale.

[00:43:17] And I want to kind of effectuate the rollup. I don't want to be rolled up. and different people at different seasons. If someone's 70 years old, they'll say, look, I'll sell it into this thing and keep a little bit of equity. In other situations, if someone's 45, they'll say, I want to take this for, to run with this. How can you help me here?

[00:43:33] And we can bring in specialized private equity that does kind of like executive first private equity roll ups where there'll be an equity split, but they'll fund a lot of that growth. And so it's all very ad hoc in many ways, or kind of, I say idiosyncratic, not a negative way, but just that, there's nuance to the situations. No one, we don't do very early stage capital because VC world's kind of its own ecosystem. 

[00:43:55] For profitable companies in the sphere that we work in, we can help in almost every situation. And a lot of times it's just, the capital markets are not well understood. I think people say, Oh, there's private equity firms that buy a hundred percent of your company. There's banks that just give you debt, but I don't think they realize that capital is more of a continuum and that there's structured equity.

[00:44:15] There's structured debt with warrants. There's non bank lenders. There's minority private equity investments. There's a lot of different flavors. And so if we talk to the client and understand what is the desired outcome, what's the island they want to get to, then we can kind of reverse engineer and work back into, Hey, have you thought about this? 

[00:44:31] And oftentimes you'll say, I didn't know there was capital out there that did that kind of stuff. That supported these kinds of objectives. 

[00:44:37] Ronald Skelton: So give me a, I almost want to use the word demographics of it, but basically, is it the same model? Like you're in the EBITDA of 1 million to 10 million and you want to raise X number of dollars to do, is there a window or a target range that accompanies you work with inside of this and you help them raise a certain, give me an idea.

[00:44:56] You're still you're, let's target a 1 million to $10 million EBITDA. 

[00:45:00] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, it's the same, it's effectively the same demographics. We're having all the same conversations. And so it's the same complexion. And I also think in business, you kind of, who you resonate with to a degree, right?

[00:45:11] Like I don't drive a, a bright green Lamborghini. And so I may not get along with the crypto crowd, but I do wear brass button blazers and on a Friday in the summer in New England. So look, is there an element of kind of the, I think more tried and true businesses that are going to resonate the Buffett Graham, Charlie Munger type of crowd that does resonate.

[00:45:32] Yeah. And so, I'd say we've, we learned that it's always a combination of where you got good responses of what was actually fascinating to me of the type of businesses that I like the type of, because at the end of the day, like we're always, we're selling us a story, right? And so I don't want to be in a situation where I'm selling and I don't know anything about crypto.

[00:45:52] So I'm not opining on that industry, but like we're not out there selling snake oil to the buyers or to the capital providers. I want to be able to point to this company and say, this is a fundamentally sound business that, that hits all of the right targets. Because if I believe in what we're selling as the company, then we're going to do a better job of selling that just like our own services.

[00:46:09] You got to believe what it is that you're selling them. So complexion wise, it's going to be very similar. Situation might be company does 1, 000, 000 in EBITDA, was doing 3 million in EBITDA. Wants to sell the business to the next generation, but needs to bridge a million dollar gap. And so we say, okay, if you're doing a million in EBITDA and there's limited debt on the company, we can get you a million dollar loan that'll bridge you for a year.

[00:46:34] Then we'll bring in a bank once you're back at 3 million EBITDA to give you three turns of ebitda, $9 million that you can just kind of leverage and use it to take, to extract the money from the company and then kind of hand it off with the no in tow, like a management buyout to the next generation.

[00:46:49] So that'll oftentimes it'll be, sometimes it's kind of a sequenced thing where it's non bank debt going down. Cause you always kind of want to work the lower cost of capital as things evolve. But it's, every situation's unique, but that's just an example of one. 

[00:47:03] Ronald Skelton: So somebody is trying to, that was a great example.

[00:47:05] What's the ranges like? Well, we can help somebody range from, raised from a million dollars to, you know. 

[00:47:13] Arthur Petropoulos: I always say look, the bulk of our transactions, we've done some stuff bigger. We've done some stolen. The bulk of the ultimate transactions, usually one to $100 million, just because when 10 million EBITDA company, we would sell it for 120 to 150 million, but it just as a general kind of rule of thumb.

[00:47:29] So from a debt transaction to, you can think of it similarly, because it's usually prices on a multiple of existing EBITDA. But if there's a lot of assets, it can be higher. But generally speaking, one to a hundred million, I think under a million dollars is tricky because it's either very early stage and you really need believers.

[00:47:46] In which case it's really just the owner of the business selling themselves. And I don't, we don't add a lot of value because if we talk to someone, they're going to say, let me just talk to the owner. And I think above a hundred million, it gets into, I think lower cost of capital, kind of traditional financing sources like a Wells Fargo, ABL line or, big banking stuff that's a little outside of our realm.

[00:48:05] And a little less, I think. 

[00:48:07] Ronald Skelton: That's an awesome range. I can't think of any of the businesses that I've ever worked with or talked to that would need to go above that. I play in this world, where that's a, a hundred millions would be, big. That's a big, that's a big thing.

[00:48:17] And there's a world where that's not enough. So that's one thing I really like about, I call this whole mergers and acquisitions space an ADHD paradise, right? If you get bored here, you just, you're just not active because there's so many different things.

[00:48:29] So many, you cannot get bored in this space just because, last year, this time I was looking at coffee roasting companies and recurring revenue. And now I'm buying newsletters and blogs because I can move them anywhere in the world. And, two different things. I didn't buy any of the roasting companies, but I'm glad I didn't because I didn't realize I'd need to move again.

[00:48:45] Arthur Petropoulos: I always kind of paint us as a, maybe I'm full of myself, but as Renaissance men to some degree, where there's so many fascinating things in this world. Life is a buffet more than it's a fixed course meal and you just don't get to eat everything you possibly want to eat.

[00:48:58] So what's neat in our business is that, and someone will say on a negative side, my knowledge is a mile wide and inch deep, but I think of it as more positive in that we get exposure to so many different things and so many interesting businesses. And again, tying that same, lying across all of them of like amazing people that run amazing companies.

[00:49:15] It's a neat thing to do, and I don't think a lot of people get, are as blessed to kind of have that level of exposure every day.

[00:49:21] Ronald Skelton: I love the show just because, I get to meet people. I've met people who, they just do, just the randomest things you would never think. I was interviewing a guy who had bought a manufacturing complaints.

[00:49:29] It's like, cool. What do you manufacture? Like, sorting devices, large, I think they're like a quarter million dollars and up, sorting devices to sort shrimp. I was like, okay, they make a device that costs over a quarter million dollars to sort shrimp. And it can sort the sizes. And I think it can detect bad ones.

[00:49:43] It's got all kinds of technology on it and it can kick them off to the side and, it helped package them. And I was like, okay, this is a big stainless steel, food grade machine, that can sort shrimp. And then I've had another guy who does foundry services. They buy, I mean, old fashioned companies that basically pour steel. They make the molds and stuff like that.

[00:50:00] I was like, cool. What's the weirdest thing you've ever made? Cause I liked that. And he's like, they made full size, adult like size or, an adult can get on it, steel rocking horses for a New York that were unicorns, right? So if you think about the old playground, they had that metal rocking horse, you get on it with the big spring at the bottom.

[00:50:17] They made a couple of full size wasn't it went somewhere to New York that were unicorns that like adults could get on. And I was like, they made some really weird, interesting things and you just, you don't get that in all industries, right? I went back to the real estate space, like where I was before I came into this space, houses are houses. You get a one story, two story, you get some weird stuff, but you see the same thing over and over and over again most of the time, right?

[00:50:37] Arthur Petropoulos: I know what you mean. I always respect people that are obsessed with their craft and whether it's a, I like whether it's cars or watches, like the reason we have an affinity to it is because we think of one person on the bench making the watch just perfect. And, it's fascinating.

[00:50:52] And so the neat part of our business is, we're obsessed with our business and the interactions and the transactions amongst all these companies. But by virtue of doing it, you and I get to meet people that are obsessed with coffee bean roasting or task force management, software or whatever it might be. 

[00:51:09] Ronald Skelton: Yeah It's just, and you get surprised at how much money is in some of these little industries too. You're like, I don't know.

[00:51:15] I can't think of a good model off the top of my head, but i've been really shocked at finding that somebody is making 150, $200 million or some obscure staff, a year. Off of some obscure SaaS software, because they helped insurance companies do something different. And they, they got all the big ones or it just, it's interesting what people can carve out inside of this. And you get to learn new things all the time.

[00:51:36] Arthur Petropoulos: There's riches in the niches. That's what we always say. 

[00:51:39] Ronald Skelton: There definitely is. I think we're hitting the top of the hour. How does people get ahold of you? That's the next thing I want to do is, what if somebody's interested, they meet your target market, or, they think that you need your services and stuff. What's the best way to get ahold of you?

[00:51:50] Arthur Petropoulos: Yeah, I'd say on our website, so hillviewps. com. And they can reach out to me directly on, on LinkedIn. Or go to our company LinkedIn page. We also have a YouTube channel. We put out a couple of videos a week, just kind of explainers on things, but we're pretty responsive, so I'd say. 

[00:52:04] Anyone interested to have a chat? We're always happy to have chats, whether someone believes they could be a client now, or may want to do something in the future and just to chat on things, be a sounding board. We love those conversations. So I'd say the website, LinkedIn and, and YouTube. We have not started a, Hillview partners, Tiktok page.

[00:52:22] I doubt we ever will, but.

[00:52:23] Ronald Skelton: I'm trying it. It's actually, it's a different thing. I've got some, you'll be on there in a few weeks. We'll take clips out of this. We'll take clips out of this and put them on there, but, we're still learning that space.

[00:52:32] It's a different, it's a different clientele. It's a different market. And, as we learn it, we'll get better at it. That said, if somebody can remember only one or two things about, Hillview partners and what you've taught us about you guys today, what would you want them to walk away remembering?

[00:52:47] Arthur Petropoulos: I would say, it's important to remember to always have, if you're obsessed with your business, then when you are going to sell your business or find capital, you should find someone who's obsessed with doing that. And that's us. And I'd say we will be relentless, in our pursuit of our client's objectives, the same way that they are for their clients.

[00:53:08] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. Well, I appreciate having you here today and we'll call that a show.

[00:53:11] Arthur Petropoulos: Sounds good, Ron. I appreciate the time here. Thanks.