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O P I N I O N
Owning ownership transition
The effort to chart a new path should begin long before firm founders retire, and should be exhaustive.
I n 2018, All4 Inc. successfully navigated its first ownership transition through a transaction with JMH Capital. ALL4 had two primary objectives from its transaction in 2018: (1) To successfully transition ownership from two founding partners who were nearing retirement, and (2) To position ALL4 to execute its growth plan. The ALL4 growth plan is composed of an aggressive organic growth strategy combined with a prudent acquisition strategy in the areas of geographic opportunities, complimentary air quality services, and expansion into other environmental media.
Bill Straub
ALL4, an environmental consulting company specializing in air quality, was in the position of having two founding partners approaching retirement age and having reached a size and valuation that would require us to consider various options to accomplish our two primary objectives. These objectives were to (1) Provide a fair return to our retiring partners, and (2) Position ALL4 financially to execute our growth plan. Our process began in 2015 when we initiated the following activities: 1) Educated ourselves by attending seminars and net- working with industry peers about how this process occurred at other environmental consulting firms. 2) Investigated various transition options to accom- plish our objectives. These options included: ❚ ❚ “Staying the course” with the remaining two part- ners buying the outstanding shares.
❚ ❚ Rolling into a larger consulting firm (either multi- disciplinary or air quality centric). ❚ ❚ Creating an employee stock ownership program (ESOP). ❚ ❚ Bringing in an outside investment partner. 3) Instituted an advisory board. We envisioned the advisory board as an opportunity to experience out- side input and different perspective/thinking in our decision-making processes. 4) Engaged with an outside party to perform a compa- ny valuation and to highlight those areas where we could implement changes to improve our valuation. JMH AS AN INVESTMENT PARTNER. In early 2018, we com- pleted our transaction that brought JMH in as an investment partner. JMH was a unique partner for
See BILL STRAUB, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER September 9, 2019, ISSUE 1311
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