Entrepreneurs who work with investment bankers for their business transition can benefit from what that key piece of growth, or the actual exit, can bring to the table. Even better: working with someone who has actually been in their shoes.

“I started and sold businesses before I got into banking, so I have that perspective in my approach with clients,” said Steve Laver, managing director at Santa Monica, Calif-based investment banking firm Montminy & Co.

Laver’s 30 -plus years of industry experience also included the founding and selling of prominent businesses, with notable stops as national partner of Trammell Crow (now CBRE), and chief operating officer at Brookfield Properties, among others.

One experience that included both growing and selling was with Sotheby’s Canada.

“It started off with an investor in the business looking to get out who came to me, knowing real estate was my background. I could see the potential for the business to grow, but at the time it was a little disjointed. The business covered most of Canada but not Toronto (the largest real estate market in that country). I approached it as an opportunity to grow and to monetize it eventually. That was in my head all along, and we achieved it,” Laver said.

“It started off with a growing business, and once you’re in these expanding cities and markets, you ask yourself, do you want to be part of the maturing?”

Laver took the path of developing the early growth with his partners and turning that into a valuation multiple. “We sold it to a micro public company; and then as we continued to grow, its major investor decided to have his TSX public company offer to buy it a few years later,” he said.

“It was a stepped process. Lots of bumps and turns and twists along the way,” Laver said, but the deal ultimately came to fruition.

The Sotheby's experience was good background for when Laver became chief operating officer and founding partner of Bentall Capital, which previously had been a small Vancouver, BC-based family business focused on the construction sector.

Laver’s Bentall experience informed him in future endeavors in terms of the quality of colleagues. “I was drawn to who Bob Bentall was, who the people were,” he said.

It turned out Bentall was also an untapped opportunity that needed to adapt in the late 1990s, early 2000s, because, as Laver stated, it was a time when “no one wanted to talk about real estate,” on the heels of a boom and bust period.

“Looking at other strategies, there was an opportunity to take what we were doing and build a different type of platform ꟷ an advisory business.”

Ultimately, Laver and his partners sold their controlling interest to other partners, who continued to grow the business into what today has become BentallGreenOak - a $100 billion real estate advisor and investor.

“Being connected to good, solid people is important, because things happen [in the transition process], and in the face of challenges, you need patience because the client has to figure stuff out. Sometimes I play that consigliere role, even if the deal is stalled for another six months or more,” Laver said.

“Sellers can get to a point where things seem too complicated, so you have to balance patience with gently pushing the client.”

At this point in his career, Laver added working with the right people can also bring more enjoyment to his craft. “I like to have clients I can have fun with.”