Matt Wolf
speaker
221 appearances
14 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Matt Wolf’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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So, yes, I am at a very unique – Cross section or overlay of skill sets to be able to answer that question and and the guidance I would give give you or anybody else is it's not so much the level of the valuation, but the direction of it. So, okay, if you're invested in a position and it's been held at cost for four years, well, why is that? What's the story there? Does that story make sense?
How do you feel about that? Or if it's increased 100% in two years... Well, what's the story behind that growth? Does that make sense? And so, yes, there's a lot of quantitative information that goes into these valuations. And you and I have talked at length about EBITDA multiples and interest rates and SOFR curves and things like that.
but also really pay attention to sort of the qualitative story. And does it make sense that this mark is still at cost or that this mark has increased or that this mark has come down, right? And I think that's the telltale sign. And if you're looking at some valuations and say, wow, all of these things have, you know, we've been in these positions in this fund for decades,
somewhere between two to five years on all of these and they're all still held at cost. You know, that might be a sign to be skeptical, for example. But just, you know, don't worry so much about the level of the valuation or what that implied EBITDA multiple is or isn't. But how has that value changed since investment?
And does that change make sense with the sort of overall market story, the qualitative information that you know about the market, about the company? Does that change? change in value makes sense. That's what I would focus on.
Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah, thanks, Scott. So a quick background on myself. I spent nearly 20 years in the sort of M&A valuation space, working closely with sponsors, founder-owned companies, buy side, sell side, kind of throughout the transaction cycle. And over the last six, seven years, really stepped into a role as not only a client server, but as an analyst, studying these macroeconomic and industry trends that
sort of funnel m&a activity influence executive decision makers strategies and execution of those strategies and yeah it's been never a dull day even before all of the the recent uncertainty and volatility and Es ist ein absoluter Wippsaal von Informationen. Und einfach alles voranzubringen, ist im Grunde ein Vollzeitjob.
Und was ich sehe, was ich sehe, ist die vorwärtssehenden Signale von Entscheidungsführern, von Geschäftsführern, was die nächsten zwölf Monate aussehen werden. We've seen a lot of major banks and other houses have signaled a base case for recession in the next 12 months.
It might look something like the prior issues with inventory, supply chains, everything grinding to a halt is a potential scenario that I'm kind of watching and interested in.
We've seen a lot of companies pull back on spending for consulting, advisory services as they focus on securing enough supplies and inventory ahead of any potential tariffs, particularly as certainly consumer products companies and others are gearing up for. already for back to school, even holiday shopping for 2025. And what is this uncertainty going to do with there?
And this is the thing very few people are talking about is M&A, right? Going into 2025, we had hoped that it would be a robust year for deal making as sponsors and sort of older vintage funds were looking to exit. Ja, das stimmt. But it's really been muted compared to where our expectations were even three months ago.
And there's no real sign to suggest that that will improve until we're on the other end of sort of this economic cycle, on the other end of the sort of likely recession.
Yeah, you know, it's just an interesting point that just as a corollary to just a few years ago, which feels like a long time ago of, well, we, you know, as we were emerging from the pandemic, there was a lot of talk about a soft landing. What does that look like?
What has to go right for us to hit this soft landing in terms of just the right monetary, fiscal, policy, other economic factors that will deliver us through the pandemic without A recession. And, you know, we largely achieved that going forward. What we're hearing is and what they're talking about is where is the soft landing?
Like there is no path for that soft landing, no real path that people can see or that is likely to occur. And so there's sort of, you know, what I'm hearing and what we're looking at is what what is sort of the worst case scenario? How do we there's so much uncertainty. How do we prepare for the worst? First of all, trying to figure out what that even looks like is difficult.
What is a likely bad or worst case scenario? And then how do we prepare for that? So in terms of deploying money, making acquisitions, I mean, it's
it's tough right ultimately private equity sponsor makes money by deploying capital but you know it's very difficult and the the hesitance to pull the trigger on deals has exploded uh over the past few weeks still certainly quality assets exist and there are reasons to be optimistic across sectors about making acquisitions and driving efficiency particularly in the lower end of the middle market
Aber man, es ist viel mehr Analyse muss in diese Verhandlungen gehen. Und Dinge werden wirklich extra berücksichtigt, wenn sie überhaupt geschaut werden.
Yeah, thanks, Chanel. So, you know, we're watching capital market flows, of course, and particularly with lately looking at the actual public equity markets and what it might mean for IPO opportunities.
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