ACG National Capital
As we continue to approach the highly anticipated 21st Mid-Atlantic Growth Conference, Tech Showcase and ACG DealSource, our conversations with top DC/Metro business executives are also not slowing down.
Two weeks ago, we shared our conversation with The McLean Group’s Greg Woodford, and we’re now happy to bring you our sit-down with Greg Treger, a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Clearsight Advisors. He also serves as board member of the ACG National Capital Chapter.
Mr. Treger is a frequent speaker and author on M&A, and his extensive experience includes sell-side, buy-side and recapitalization transactions for private and public companies. He also has investment banking experience in a number of related industry sectors, including public sector technology, professional services and software.
We spoke with Mr. Treger about the upcoming ACG DealSource, and why it’s important for investors and companies in the DC/Metro area and beyond.
Here is what he had to say:
CGCS: What is DealSource and why should investors want to attend?
Greg Treger: DealSoure is an event for capital providers to meet with investment banks. It allows them to talk about deal opportunities that are in the marketplace and share information, but the goal is really to enable deal makers to get together.
Most of the capital providers and private equity firms today have more capital than they have good deals to invest that capital in. So they are in shortage of good quality deals, making this is a unique opportunity for a private equity firm to meet with 12 investment banks to hear about those banks’ deal flows and talk about specific deals over a three-hour period.
A traditional private equity business development methodology would be to visit a number a cities and try to schedule as many meetings as possible in each city. With DealSource, you can have 12 meetings with 12 investment banks over a three-hour period in one setting, so it’s a great opportunity to maximize your time and hopefully find new deals that you may not have heard of otherwise.
CGCS: Why is it important in the DC/Metro business community?
Greg Treger: The event attracts both folks from inside the community as well as folks outside the community. For people outside of the community, it’s an opportunity to come to DC and meet with firms – both private equity firms and investment banks – from inside the community that they may not have been very familiar with. I think a lot of the general deal making environment naturally thinks of Washington DC as all government contracting-centric, when in reality we have a very active and vibrant technology community here, and so it’s an opportunity for the DC/Metro community to showcase that a bit and to share our deals, share some exciting things and companies that are growing here in this region with those outside regions.
On the other side of the coin, it’s an opportunity for a lot of the local businesses based here to get exposure to folks from outside the community. We’ve always had pretty good attendance from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, California, Texas, Florida, and Atlanta; we’ve done a good job of making sure we blanket the local community, but also make sure we’re reaching out to the national deal community and letting them know what opportunities we have here in the DC region, particularly around technology.
CGCS: Which industries do you believe will be most represented? What companies are normally in attendance?
Greg Treger: I think in general, the top three industries represented by the investment banks are technology, business services, and government contracting. It’s pretty broad though; there are a number of firms that have 12 different industry groups within their firm, so it’s a pretty broad representation, but those would certainly be the top three.
In terms of companies in attendance, what we’re doing this year is very unique and not something we’ve done traditionally. As a way to even further the message about the technology community here in the DC region, we’re have a Technology Showcase for DC companies. We’re having a series of 15-20 minute presentations from leading growth technology companies here in the DC region to present to our audience, and the audience is typically represented by the investment banks, other services providers, lawyers, accountants, private equity firms, and also folks from industry, and those industries that are represented are mostly technology and government contracting, so it’s an opportunity for us to highlight some of those really interesting, compelling growth stories here in the DC region.
For more information about the 21st Mid-Atlantic Growth Conference, Tech Showcase and ACG DealSource, and to register, click HERE