As a lawyer, Jenny Tran is well experienced in the area of mergers and acquisitions and serving as general counsel to privately held businesses.

Tran, based in Newport Beach, California, is a partner with the firm Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth.

“My practice is serving as outside general counsel to privately held businesses and I also have a background in tax. So when I introduce myself, I present myself as a business lawyer. And for transactions, 90 per cent of my transactions are sales side M&A with 10 per cent being for strategic purposes,” she said.

Tran is on the steering committee for the Business Transitions Forum in San Diego on September 24.

In her practice, Tran is also involved in doing business succession planning.

“In that regard, there are a lot of twists and turns in businesses before there is a full exit.  From sale to co-owners, to incentivizing key employees, and other transitions prior to full exits,” she said.

“There’s definitely been a slowing down in the M&A market as a result of rising interest rates because the cost of capital is high. There are definitely a lot of creative structures to offset the cost of borrowing for buyers.  A lot sellers are now carrying on a portion of the sale as seller financing, or ‘roll-over equity’. In addition to that, in the United States in the next 10 to 15 years (will experience) one of the largest transitions of business, wealth and assets and oftentimes for privately held businesses their business is the single largest asset a business owner has.”

She said one of the topics at the Forum is how to scale and grow before a sale. Also, one of the topics is whether or not a company goes on the market for sale.

“For privately held businesses, the motivation to transition is to get to a level of freedom, and finances is definitely a large part of that. Freedom from risk, be it legislative risk, operational risk because of the industry they’re in, freedom from the day to day operations because they’re tired of the grind,” said Tran.

“I always say that they should vision what their life should look like before sale and after the sale. The central catalyst and motivator for success, part of it is a lot of business owners at a certain point definitely have thought about selling but without visualizing what that would look like, the most important step which is the first step doesn’t actually get taken.   With the end goal in mind, the transition has a higher likelihood of success.”

Since 2015, the Business Transitions Forum has been helping entrepreneurs learn about ownership transitions and opportunities for M&A (mergers and acquisitions). The concept is expanding from Canada into the US market, starting in San Diego.

The Business Transitions Forum is evolving to reveal comprehensive strategies to grow businesses of all kinds, while still educating entrepreneurs on the role M&A can play in increasing shareholder value on both the sell side and buy side.

People can connect with serial entrepreneurs and leading mergers and acquisitions practitioners from both Canada and the USA to learn how to:

• Increase market share and shareholder value
• Identify ways to grow and/or scale your business
• Learn about being acquired or acquiring businesses
• Discover how M&A can offer your business a path to growth
• Understand how M&A can create opportunities for personal wealth creation through an eventual transition