In this week’s 733Park Check-In, we hear from our Founder and Manager Director, Lane Gordon. During the last 20 years, Lane has been active in investment banking. He's developed and executed many successful public and private equity roll-up strategies in FinTech, Payments, and SAAS. Today we’ll look into 733Park’s remarkable pandemic start and discuss investment banking.
Lane Gordon – Founder and Manager Director of 733Park
Companies more than ever before are seeking opportunities to add value and diversify their operations. As a result, the M&A industry is the hottest it’s ever been, and it’s delivering the growth investors are looking for. Although despite this, there are two vital things often missing from M&A services:
1. High-quality client attention, and
2. Specialization in specific areas
Lane knew he had to fix this. So after starting his previous firm in 2005, Lane launched 733Park during the pandemic of 2020, a more modern and personalized approach to M&A services. 733Park aspires to deliver both personal client attention and expertise in Payments, SAAS and FinTech.
What's happening today?
The M&A industry is booming. With interest rates being historically low and huge amounts of capital available to pursue opportunities, investors recognize that private and public companies offer incredible value. 733Park’s detailed and personalized approach is helping both principals and investors to
maximize value.
Where do you see investing banking going?
In terms of the M&A services, Lane mentions more and more firms will adjust their service offerings and focus on their areas of strength. Firms will start shifting from generalists firms towards specialist firms. Lane expressed, “it's very difficult to be a master of all. You add very little value unless you have expertise in a niche.”
This specialist and client-focused route Lane adopted continues to pay off. Transactions done at 733Park have always been somewhere between $3 million on the lowest end and $400 million on the highest end, but consistently, 733Park executes on transactions between $20 million and $80 million.
What's the most interesting trend in investment banking and how is it different from pre-COVID?
After feeling for the individuals and businesses who were crushed during the pandemic, Lane spoke on the vital pivot to cloud-based services, automation, and online ordering. Technologies have gotten a massive boost from the pandemic because now businesses like small restaurants have had to adopt some sort of online ordering platform to stay open. In addition to offering a PDF menu online, restaurants have to give their customers a way to pay for their services using their credit card and provide delivery or contactless pickup. But what really interests Lane is what happens after COVID-19. Lane said, “personally, I think Pandora's box has been opened. I don't think there's any going back, especially with K-12 schools. Will there ever be a snow day again in the northeast? They've been forced to master and facilitate remote learning. Why would you have a snow day? Why not just announce ‘today's a remote learning day.’ The cat is out of the bag.” This also connects with telemedicine, Lane added, “why would you go to the doctor for a sore throat when you can just have a video chat with the doctor and get a prescription?”
733Park is a boutique M&A firm specializing in payments, fintech and SaaS mergers and acquisitions, deal sourcing, and advisory services.
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