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The term nano gap was coined by accounting firm Deloitte to describe the shortage of capital to fund the retirement of baby-boomer entrepreneurs seeking to sell their small, medium enterprises (SMEs). [1] In the Deloitte report: "Micro-cap typically refers to those companies with an equity value of less than $250 million. Nano-cap is another term that is used to refer to companies with a value of less than $10 million."
In Canada, the retirement and sale of baby boomer businesses has been described as one of the largest ongoing generational transfers of wealth in the country's history. Estimates as to the size of this transfer range as high as $1.9 trillion over the next two decades. [2] [3]
The demographic trend driving this transfer is powerful. According to Statistics Canada there are 1.4 million small businesses in Canada. Almost all of them are owned by baby boomers. More than half of all SME owners in Canada are set to retire over the next decade with between 300,000 and 500,000 are planning to transfer control of their companies within the next five years. [4] [5]
The nano-gap issue arises as there is a shortage of organized capital in the $2 to $20M acquisition range. Because of this sellers are facing relatively low valuations. This in turn represents a largely un-recognized buying opportunity. "With a glut of baby boomer-owned SMEs imminently available, there is an untapped and growing opportunity for Canadian private equity firms to realize significant value at the low end of the micro-cap market. Canada is arriving at a natural inflection point where baby boomer small business owners will need to consider selling. This will sharply increase the supply of available businesses – a market reality that simply did not exist five or ten years ago". [6] [7] It has been estimated that almost $2 trillion of businesses will be coming up for sale over the next decade which is twice as large as the assets of the top 1,000 Canadian pension plans and approximately the same size as Canadian annual GDP. [8]
There is a limited amount of PE capital in Canada and very little focusing on this nano-gap market as reflected by the higher overall returns to PE investments in Canada and particularly to smaller PE transactions. According to the CVCA, over the last 10 years Canadian PE has generated 14.2% CAGRs while the US (sub $250 million deal size) generated only 3.4% over the same time frame. [9]
According to Alberta Treasury Branch research "baby boomer SMEs owners/operators are nearing retirement age. In fact, four in ten (42%) of the financial decision makers we talked to are 55 years of age or older. Another ATB survey (ATB Customer Advisory Panel Feb 21, 2013 - Mar 7, 2013) found nearly six in ten (58%) businesses do not have a succession plan in place. And of those 55 years of age or older, almost half (48%) do not have a succession plan. Top reasons cited were: "it's too early to plan", "I don't know", "I don't want to think about leaving", and "I don't have time to deal with the issue". [10]
Market capitalization, commonly called market cap, is the market value of a publicly traded company's outstanding shares.
The Toronto Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 11th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in the EY Tower in Toronto's Financial District, the TSX is a wholly owned subsidiary of the TMX Group for the trading of senior equities. A broad range of businesses from Canada and abroad are represented on the exchange. In addition to conventional securities, the exchange lists various exchange-traded funds, split share corporations, income trusts and investment funds. More mining and oil and gas companies are listed on Toronto Stock Exchange than any other stock exchange.
Succession planning is a process and strategy for replacement planning or passing on leadership roles. It is used to identify and develop new, potential leaders who can move into leadership roles when they become vacant. Succession planning in dictatorships, monarchies, politics, and international relations is used to ensure continuity and prevention of power struggle. Within monarchies succession is settled by the order of succession. In business, succession planning entails developing internal people with managing or leadership potential to fill key hierarchical positions in the company. It is a process of identifying critical roles in a company and the core skills associated with those roles, and then identifying possible internal candidates to assume those roles when they become vacant. Succession planning also applies to small and family businesses where it is the process used to transition the ownership and management of a business to the next generation.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Fidelity Investments Inc., commonly referred to as Fidelity, earlier as Fidelity Management & Research or FMR, is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in 1946 and is one of the largest asset managers in the world with $4.5 trillion in assets under management as of December 2021 and assets under administration of $11.8 trillion. Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, cryptocurrency, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
Big Five is the name colloquially given to the five largest banks that dominate the banking industry of Canada: Bank of Montreal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD).
CIBC World Markets Inc. is the investment banking subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The firm operates as an investment bank both in the domestic and international equity and debt capital markets. The firm provides a variety of financial services including credit and capital market products, mergers and acquisitions, merchant banking, and other investment banking advisory services.
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is an institutional investor that manages several public and parapublic pension plans and insurance programs in Quebec. CDPQ was founded in 1965 by an act of the National Assembly, under the government of Jean Lesage. It is the second-largest pension fund in Canada, after the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. As of December 31, 2021, CDPQ managed assets of C$420 billion, invested in Canada and elsewhere. CDPQ is headquartered in Quebec City at the Price building and has its main business office in Montreal at Édifice Jacques-Parizeau.
SME finance is the funding of small and medium-sized enterprises, and represents a major function of the general business finance market – in which capital for different types of firms are supplied, acquired, and costed or priced. Capital is supplied through the business finance market in the form of bank loans and overdrafts; leasing and hire-purchase arrangements; equity/corporate bond issues; venture capital or private equity; asset-based finance such as factoring and invoice discounting, and government funding in the form of grants or loans.
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TD Securities is a Canadian investment bank and financial services provider that offers advisory and capital market services to corporate, government, and institutional clients worldwide. The firm provides services in corporate and investment banking, capital markets, and global transaction services. It is the investment bank of Toronto-Dominion Bank Group, and has offices in 18 cities worldwide with over 3,000 employees.
CIBC Mellon was founded in 1996 as a joint venture between the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the Mellon Financial Corporation to offer asset servicing to institutional investors. While commonly known as CIBC Mellon, the company comprises two sister companies, CIBC Mellon Trust Company and CIBC Mellon Global Securities Services Company. Based in Toronto, Ontario CIBC Mellon offers asset servicing to corporate and institutional clients.
Trimaran Capital Partners is a middle-market private equity firm formerly affiliated with CIBC World Markets. Trimaran is headquartered in New York City and founded by former investment bankers from Drexel Burnham Lambert. Trimaran's predecessors were early investors in telecom and Internet businesses, most notably backing Global Crossing in 1997. Trimaran also led the first leveraged buyout of an integrated electric utility.
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company is a joint venture of India's public sector banks (Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India, and UK's financial and investment company, Legal & General. The company has paid-up share capital of ₹ 663 crore.
Exit planning is the preparation for the exit of an entrepreneur from his company to maximize the enterprise value of the company in a mergers and acquisitions transaction and thus his shareholder value, although other non-financial objectives may be pursued including the transition of the company to the next generation, sale to employees or management, or other altruistic, non-financial objectives. Exit planning differs from succession planning in that the later is a sub-component of exit planning, and refers to the hiring, training and retention of a successor President/CEO of the company in a planned manner. Succession Planning is but one of the many considerations when conducting exit planning. Company owners commonly do not see their company from the standpoint of a potential buyer, and thus, ignore the strategic management of the company.
HGGC is an American middle-market private equity firm based in Palo Alto, California, with over $4.25 billion of cumulative capital commitments. Since inception in 2007, HGGC has completed platform investments, add-on acquisitions, recapitalizations and liquidity events with aggregate transaction value of over $12 billion, representing more than 60 individual investments with more than 46,000 portfolio company employees. The firm was named 2014 M&A Mid-Market Private Equity Firm of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions magazine.
Sentinel Capital Partners, L.L.C. is an American private-equity firm focusing on mid-market companies. The company is headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1994 by David Lobel and John McCormack after working together at Salomon Smith Barney.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) was introduced by the European Commission to support the commercialization of high-risk, high-impact technologies in the European Union. The fully-fledged EIC was launched March 2021 under Horizon Europe and is part of the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Its goal is to aid researchers, start-ups and SMEs bring their innovations to market by providing funding, networking and partnership opportunities, and business acceleration services. In its latest form, the concept has been put forth by the EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas in mid-2015. The EIC has a budget of €10.1 billion to support innovations throughout the lifecycle from early stage research, to proof of concept, technology transfer, and the financing and scale up of start-ups and SMEs.
Idinvest Partners, founded under the name AGF Private Equity, S.A in 1997, is a European private equity and venture capital firm. Operating as part of Allianz until 2010, Idinvest Partners then became independent. Idinvest Partners is based in Paris, France and has further offices in Frankfurt (Germany), Dubai, Madrid, Spain and Shanghai, China.