M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
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Who is Chris Felderman and what does Palm Tree LLC do?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. We're thrilled each day to feature brilliant business people, brilliant private equity people. Today, we're thrilled to visit with Chris Felderman. Chris is the co-head of consulting and the head of the Chicago office at Palmtree. Palmtree is this magnificent investment bank and consulting firm that And he's going to tell us more about Palmtree and what they do. A lot of fantastic mid-market work. Chris, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about Palmtree?
Sure.
Thanks, Scott.
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.
Thank you very, very much. And talk for a moment, Chris, about sort of your sort of growth, your trajectory, how you joined Palm Tree, and a little bit of your 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.
Thank you. And in the sort of business space, the private equity space,
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