At a client meeting last week, we highlighted the sell side process at RKCA and its many steps.  And, as expected, some variation of “wow that’s a lot of milestones!” was exclaimed.  This…almost always happens.   There are two answers to our approach in laying out a detailed Gantt chart

Having young kids is a constant (and very humbling) reminder of how complicated the world is and how little we (“I”) understand it.  Not only are the questions difficult, but the “whys” afterward can break you.  Take a recent weekend example where I was asked to explain how an airplane

Raise your hand if you’ve been playing “The Blame Game” since March 2020?  We are now three years since the start of the pandemic.  Three years ago this week we were setting up home offices at RKCA “for a few weeks” and organizing virtual team happy hours to keep the

I consider myself a tolerant person. My wife and I have added three kids to the world in the last six years while both working. I can manage a Teams call while feeding a baby and while switching to mute to tell a toddler “okay wait right there and I’ll

(This article is part one of the three part series: Introduction to Investment Banking in Cincinnati) No industry loves jargon like the finance industry. “Michaelson, run through the YoY (Year-over-Year) quarterlies to compare trailing EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) against industry comps and to update our multiples

Midway through the month of December, it hit me like a freight train: high fever, no appetite, stuck in bed with zero energy. Ahh, I assumed, the flu (despite having an annual shot) finally got me. I was proud of myself for having made it that far into 2022 with

“What are you reading ?”  my wife, Jane, asked me a few weeks ago.  I replied “A book about life in Vietnam Prison Camps.”   Jane has the not-so-fun privilege of falling asleep every night while listening to pages turning and a book light shining into her eyes well past when

You can’t sit around waiting for the answers I had the privilege in 2014 to travel to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting. A friend had tickets and I was able to check an item off my bucket list. With the confluence of kids, work, COVID restrictions, and lack

If you’re humming the Electric Slide right now (fun fact the song is called “Electric Boogie” by Marcia Griffiths), then I’ve done my job. Good luck getting it out of your head today. The word axiomatic (one of my favorites) means “self-evident or unquestionable.” As I write this article, the

I’m writing this month’s RKCA Insights from our basement on Labor Day Weekend. My daughters are engrossed in “Cinderella” on Disney; and the plans we had for time outside and at the pool have been thwarted by a rainy weekend.  And if this were not the tenth time they’ve watched

I’ve never actually kicked a can down the road, and I don’t think I’ve seen someone do it. Perhaps it’s a result of being a Millennial, maybe the generation before me would just kick cans around. I don’t know. I grew up on AIM chats and burning CDs and trying

If adding a third child to your family teaches you anything, it’s that how you focus your time matters.  I’m writing this from the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), our 3-week-old spiked a fever  and we were sent to the ER and now NICU for

It’s my opinion that in this current climate of 2022, it is easy to feel sorry for yourself. Here are some examples of conversations I’ve had over the last 72 hours with business owners: We had a prospective client scored as 70% confidence in our pipeline, but they went with

Over the last three years at RKCA I’ve had the opportunity to observe many sell side transactions. I use the term “observe” for two reasons: My primary day-to-day role is focused on our Direct Investment Portfolio My route to RKCA and by extension the world of investment banking is rather

In advance of our third child arriving in June (be on the lookout for a guest RKCA Insights writer that month), my wife and I are “glamping” in southeastern Ohio.  As I write this from the porch of our cabin with a fire going, I’m both wondering why I brought

As of this writing, we mark the two-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic. When studying the impact on the Private Equity markets, its our opinion that the pandemic did little to slow down the industry’s momentum in 2021. As a result of the various monetary actions taken by the Fed

Let me be the last (hopefully) person to wish you a Happy New Year, it is February after all.  2022 has started off with stock market declines, ice storms, Omicron rates surging, and some welcomed retirements in the NFL.  Most exciting, for those of us who call Cincinnati home, the

No…this is not a promotional email to buy a new Lexus with a giant bow on top right in time for the holidays. But as we sit here in mid-December, I cannot help but reflect on the last twelve months and what we all thought this December would look like.

RKCA, a privately-held, independent investment bank announces the promotion of Neil Ursic to Partner. Neil joined RKCA in 2019 as its Vice President of Direct Investments, after serving as CEO of Batterii, a SaaS-enabled market research firm based in Cincinnati. During his time at RKCA, Neil has worked primarily inside

The concept of Loss Aversion has been well studied. It came out of the 1979 work by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and is encapsulated in the expression “losses loom larger than gains.”1   Essentially, people feel pain from losses much more intensely than they feel pleasure from gains of the

After a decade in management consulting in my 20s, I received certain perks: being paid to borrow clients’ watches to tell them what time it is, hotel status galore, airline miles for days, and the right to poke fun at the buzzwords that consulting firms throw around. But before you

Have you ever witnessed a feat of human strength so incredible it’s etched in your brain? Maybe you saw something in the most recent Olympics, or watched “Grandma rips phonebook in half” on YouTube, and thought “how does someone do that?” I’ve recently witnessed something even more impressed: movers.   My family and

I am currently on vacation with my family. Rather, I should say a trip with my family. I was told a while ago that you go on vacation until you have kids, and then with kids you go on a trip.  Amid hauling two adults and a 4 and 2

They are easy to plan for, albeit annoying. You know, often for months if not years, that they’re about to show up. In fact, almost to the day they are predicted to arrive they show up. And boy are they annoying. You thought you knew what to expect too, maybe

That’s right, I said it. While the common version of the phrase (it’s who you know, not what you know) may help you get into a suite for a Bengals game, it’s not necessarily accurate when selling your business. Also, what does it matter if you know WHO can get you into a suite,

“Traffic delay ahead causing a 41-minute delay to your arrival,” said the monotone Google Maps voice over the car speakers. My family, like many families, was on Spring Break. Unlike most travelers who headed south to a beach, we were heading to St. Louis, MO to visit family (not a Top

If you live in Cincinnati, Boise, or Omaha and have sold a home recently, I don’t have to tell you that you are in the top three fastest home sale markets in the United States.1 As a potential seller, it is welcome news that buyers are out there and ready

Click here for the original Article. Feature begins on page 6. Given that the Philippines has had some of the world’s longest community lockdowns, how do you see this affecting foreign investment in the country within the next 5-10 years? The fundamental thesis for investing in the Philippines has not

Download the pdf | Read the original article Ten thousand baby boomers are retiring every day. Those retirees collectively own and operate approximately 3.5 million businesses in the United States. If past precedent holds, there will be more than 3.0 million businesses sold, closed, or transitioned in the next two decades. Where

In a company sale, there are a variety of ways a deal can be structured to provide consideration for existing shareholders. Cash at close, seller notes, earnouts, and equity rolls can all play a part in rewarding existing ownership for what they’ve built. Frequently misunderstood, an equity roll occurs when

When looking at an exit even for your business, it is important to understand the different types of potential buyers that can encountered in a sale process. A thorough sell-side M&A process identifies a multitude of both financial and strategic buyers. These different buyer types all have different approaches in