INDUSTRY MUSINGS
Below are the latest Egret Advisors Newsletters. Click on the link to read the full article.
Newsletter 2024
Light Musings Newsletter – December 2024 – On Holidays. The Lighting industry is ubiquitous, and the holidays magnify lighting via candles (the original lighting system) and colorful decorative lighting, and of course…tree lighting. https://conta.cc/3OQDDvE
Light Musings Newsletter – November 2024 – On Leadership. I was fortunate to lead a sales organization that grew to over $1B in revenue. I had 13 direct reports and a total departmental staff of close to 100; spread around 5 locations in the US. I traveled over 40 weeks a year and in my 4.5 years as VP…. never missed a budget goal. https://conta.cc/4f1xA2z
Light Musings Newsletter – October 2024 – On Ethics. Mom was a force to reckon with; all 5 feet of her. She demanded honesty and respect. She had a fierce temper and would routinely strike one of her 3 boys with whatever device was at hand: hairbrush was her favorite, but spatulas worked very well, too. Lying was her top offense. https://conta.cc/4f1xA2z
Light Musings Newsletter – September 2024 – On Prescription Drugs and Lighting? Mark Cuban has launched the website CostplusDrugs.com. As a tech billionaire who also owns the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban is well regarded as a charitable executive who is well grounded in his success and looks for areas in the country that he can add value. Healthcare is his current ‘raison d’etre’ and he’s studied the pharmacy industry extensively and has created a first step towards reducing the prices of prescription drugs. https://conta.cc/4e68csf
Light Musings Newsletter – August 2024 – On Blackholes. There are things in the world that are simply too large for me to comprehend. Wind is one of them; as is lightening and tides (how does the moon move oceans?) But the ultimate conundrum for me is black holes. Black holes swallow galaxies! I have trouble understanding galaxies and along comes something called a black hole…and it’s eating galaxies like popcorn. https://conta.cc/3W6qO3L
Light Musings Newsletter – July 2024 – The Null Hypothesis. My PhD had a double major in Physiology and Statistics. Most of my brain cells dedicated to those disciplines have faded from site, but I’ve always been fond of telling people that their attempt to contrive a response or solution is akin to proving the null hypothesis. https://conta.cc/3W6qO3L
Light Musings Newsletter – June 2024 – NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement. It is a reasonable assumption that a prospective buyer of a business will agree to not share any confidential information from their review of the prospective acquisition. Buyers can be direct competitors or become competitors based on the documents they’re able to review in anticipation of tendering an offer. https://conta.cc/3KIYMWK
Light Musings Newsletter – May 2024 – Valuation Expectations. I get asked about valuation regularly. And I have a generalized response based on 5+ years of M&A expertise in the lighting industry; which is a simple range of adjusted EBITDA…5-8X. But the real truth is that valuation depends on several variables. https://conta.cc/3UNykQn
Light Musings Newsletter – April 2024 – On Investment Banks… part 3 Daniel Pink authored a book titled “A Whole New Mind”; published in 2006 and reprinted 40 times since. It’s an interesting book that discusses the topic of Left Brain vs Right Brain. https://conta.cc/3IAtbp9
Light Musings Newsletter – March 2024 – On Investment Banks… part 2 Wrapped deeply behind the edifice of an Investment Bank (IB) is the realization that process trumps results. The typical process for an IB follows this path: https://conta.cc/3IAtbp9
Light Musings Newsletter – February 2024 – On Investment Banks… part 1 Egret Advisors is an advisory company that specializes solely in the lighting industry and assists business owners in finding a prospective buyer for their company (EA also assists companies to identify a seller for an acquisition). https://conta.cc/42Meh8F
Light Musings Newsletter – January 2024 – The Investment Community and Lighting Merry New Year to all! The preliminary view of 2024 looks favorable. Economics continue to improve; employment, interest rates, inflation and consumer sales continue to grow. With the trends in place, the outlook for economic growth is good. https://conta.cc/47FhqYw
Newsletter 2023
Light Musings Newsletter – December 2023 – On Valuation….Math is ‘Sterile’? It’s a common refrain for those in the business of selling companies; “how much is my company worth”? The best answer is, only the market knows the current value. https://conta.cc/3Tp43bE
Light Musings Newsletter – November 2023 – Valuation? The one topic that is of highest importance to a prospective seller is Price! I.e., how much can I sell my company for? The question is justified as selling your company is not an easy task; https://conta.cc/3sv68I3
Light Musings Newsletter – October 2023 – The Price is Rigged? Last month I broached a topic that engenders emotions from many viewpoints of the industry; overage. Overage is a practice unique to lighting reps whereby they inflate the cumulative price of their package of lighting vendors’ quoted prices to enhance their profitability. https://conta.cc/3PO5aOy
Light Musings Newsletter – September 2023 – The Price is Right? Culturally, we have a variety of ‘price’ terms and policies: MSRP, List Price, Distributor Net, Sticker Price, Sale Price, Member Price, Estimated Price, etc. The commonality across all of those prices is we know the ‘price’; it’s visibly documented to us. https://conta.cc/3sYpt3X
Light Musings Newsletter – August 2023 – Enterprise Value and Macro-Economics As the founder and sole card-carrying member of SOAP (Skeptical of All Predictions: Apocalypse, World Series winner, Super bowl, weather forecasts and more) I’m attracted to macro-economics of which I know nothing. https://conta.cc/44bCh3W
Light Musings Newsletter – July 2023 – Channels In the investment world, lighting is considered an ‘industrial’. As labels can be inaccurate, consider that the investment community (wall street as well as private equity, and venture capital players) views a lighting manufacturer as an industrial; i.e. a manufacturer that makes equipment via industrial processes. https://conta.cc/48aC9DZ
Light Musings Newsletter – June 2023 – Reps Lighting reps occupy a unique role in the construction industry. They are heavily invested in the specification process. Their path to profitability is to ensure a ‘locked spec’ on a job; whether that spec locker is only 1 line or 20 lines of the fixture schedule; it’s lucrative. https://conta.cc/3Jm39qt
Light Musings Newsletter – May 2023 – Exit Strategy I’ve been around long enough to recall several career ‘exits’: Woody Hayes punched a Clemson player, Bobby Knight threw a chair onto the court and more seriously Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy exited tragically. https://conta.cc/3pOIC6V