Chris Felderman
speaker
53 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard May 2025
Chris Felderman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Yeah, I mean, we've definitely seen a slowdown in deals in our transaction advisory discipline in terms of buy-side volume, but we are seeing an uptick in sort of that sell-side preparedness, sell-side quality of earnings, even in carve-outs. So I think there's potential there, and that's got us excited that there is still a need for consulting services.
And while it might not be on the deal front that these portfolio companies, there's opportunity there to get out in front of some of these tariffs, and we can be helpful with that. And even when it comes to planning for liquidity or readiness around this, that's where we can really provide value to our clients.
Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me on.
Sure.
Like you said, my name is Chris Felderman. I'm a senior managing director at Palmtree. I lead our Chicago office. I also oversee the operations of the firm's consulting business, which includes offerings in transaction advisory, accounting advisory, strategic finance, data and analytics, and operations consulting.
And the way we like to describe Palmtree is Palmtree is the modern M&A and operations advisory firm. And I like to explain it a little bit in the what, the when, and the how. So I'll just walk you through that. So in terms of the what,
Our primary objective is to provide perspectives on financial and operational data to enable buyers and sellers to make more informed decisions to drive value creation. When we think about the when, we really provide support to our private equity and corporate clients across the entire investment lifecycle.
In pre-transaction, our offerings include financial and operational due diligence, as well as pre-close accounting and finance operations diagnostics, which includes the people process systems, as well as data and analytics assessments.
On a post-close basis, our transitional offerings are generally focused around things companies taking on institutional capital for the first time typically have not focused on, which includes accounting and finance support,
to enhance and optimize financial reporting, cash management, network and capital management, improved process documentation, and we even provide interim support, such as CFO, VP of Finance, or FP&A assistance.
And then on the performance improvement and value creation side of our business, we offer solutions like audit preparedness, financial forecasting, budgeting enhancements, data and analytics improvements and implementations, and operational assessments and improvements that really provide true value creation and enhance enterprise value.
And then on the how, we really offer these solutions through a bench of nearly 100 professionals across our four main offices in LA, Chicago, Detroit, and Dallas, and many of which have a prior big four corporate finance or investment banking background.
Sure. So, you know, I really got into the industry through my background in Big Four. I started out as an auditor. I moved into a transaction support role, spent several years in the Big Four doing that. ultimately ventured out on my own to start my own transaction advisory consulting firm and spent five or six years doing that. I was eventually introduced to the founder of Palmtree back in 2017.
They were trying to build a business similar to me in a different market. Really, it allowed me to maintain my entrepreneurial spirit, but also gave me the bandwidth to continue to serve clients better. rather than with just the small team that I had. And so I joined on in 2018 to help build out a transaction advisory group, as well as build a Chicago office.
And six, seven years later, we've got 25 folks in Chicago, and we've got 100 people across the nation. And we've expanded our offerings, not only in the consulting business, but also offering investment banking services to go along with that, to really round out our ability to help our clients anywhere they are in the investment life cycle.
All well aware the M&A market in 2024 was quite challenging with large gaps in valuations between sellers and buyers. A lot of deal timelines were drawn out, et cetera, et cetera.
So we're keenly watching to see if the recent resurgence in deal activity at the higher end of the market will continue trickling down to the mid market and the lower mid market, which is more of the space that we like to play in. So that's one thing we're watching. Another is recent headlines are all about tariffs, right?
So we're interested in those developments as they can obviously impact current and pending deal activity on many fronts, such as the effect that they can have on sales or profitability forecasts, which are a major driver of deal value and getting a deal across the finish line.
We're also watching and paying attention to the effects that they might have on inflation, which also impacts interest rates. And we're very sensitive to that in the M&A industry, right?
That can significantly alter the price of buyers willing to pay for a business, not only by making the cost of the acquisition debt more expensive, but also constricting the free cash flow of the company they're looking to buy and thereby limiting its ability to invest in further growth.
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