Strattam Wins M&A Advisor’s $50MM-$100MM Deal of the Year
In December, M&A Advisor announced that Strattam Capital won the 2020 Private Equity Deal of the Year ($50MM-$100MM) for its majority investment in MHC Software. This marks our second consecutive year to receive high honors from M&A Advisor, and we’re grateful to the independent judging panel for selecting us from among such a distinguished group of finalists.
This deal exemplifies how our radically transparent investment process, the Five-Point Plan, can position companies for success simply by ensuring early alignment on objectives and next steps.
In the case of MHC, adherence to the Five-Point Plan process meant an early dialogue with MHC’s founder and CEO, John Shields, regarding his succession planning goals. Based on that discussion, we were quickly able to identify the company’s COO, Gina Armada, as an exceptional talent who had deep industry domain expertise and was more than capable of stepping into the CEO role. Thanks to this early action, we were able to align on Gina’s promotion before signing the deal and announce her promotion immediately upon closing. Since that time, Gina has done an excellent job navigating the company through the pandemic and has built a high-caliber leadership team to further support the company’s goals. This included hiring a CFO, a VP of Sales, and Directors of Marketing, Strategy, Product Management and Global Partnerships.
Our commitment to a collaborative and transparent diligence process also enabled us to unite two leading enterprise automation companies with complementary solutions to create a category leader with over 1,100 customers right out of the gate. We had previously developed a relationship with Dave Engberg, the founder of Vanguard Systems, through our proactive research into the workflow automation sector. When we were introduced to John Shields of MHC, we immediately saw an opportunity to put the two businesses together to increase scale and unlock cross-sell opportunities. Our unique diligence process allowed us to conduct diligence on MHC while at the same time, work with the MHC team to collaboratively diligence Vanguard as the company’s first add-on acquisition. We were ultimately able to simultaneously diligence, sign and close both transactions within 60 days.
MHC has since completed two more add-on acquisitions over the past year to add unique product capabilities and expand into new market adjacencies. This accomplishment—which is impressive under normal circumstances, and extraordinary during a pandemic—is a clear testament both to Gina’s leadership and to the strength and expertise of her executive team.
Together with MHC management, we continue to focus intently on product innovation. With the addition of new technical and financial resources, MHC has been able to accelerate the development of exciting new products and bolster its market positioning while continuing to deliver the exceptional customer satisfaction it is renowned for.
Again, we at Strattam are extremely proud that M&A Advisors elected to recognize our work on this deal. Through this transaction, we enabled two founders to achieve their succession planning goals; we merged two highly complementary businesses to unlock significant cross-sell opportunities; and we provided support for new initiatives that have accelerated growth and expanded the employee base.
We know that deals like this are constantly in the making by numerous firms, so it’s very gratifying to know that ours stood out as a winner. We credit this honor to our unique approach to diligence and partnerships with founders, the decisions solidified in our Five-Point Plan, and the incredible collaboration with MHC throughout the journey. Congratulations to all who worked hard on this winning effort!
