In today’s episode, Tommy talks with Brent Beshore, Founder and CEO of Permanent Equity, a North American private equity firm investing permanent equity in family-owned companies with $2.5 million to $14 million in net owner earnings.
Having no background in private equity and never having taken a finance class, Brent jokes that he's the Forrest Gump of private equity. He runs a private equity fund, but he’s not really a private equity guy. He invests in businesses with no intention of selling. His goal is to keep employees on board and not put the business into debt. At Permanent Equity, Brent leads the acquisition and diligence teams, while supporting portfolio company operators.
Tommy talks with Brent about the rising movement of permanent equity instead of short-term private equity flips, why people sell their companies, and how Permanent Equity is changing the game of private equity investing.
Key Takeaways
[01:42] - What Permanent Equity is and how it serves clients.
[05:19] - The difference between venture capital and private equity investments.
[08:26] - Brent's journey into the world of business.
[12:00] - What he learned from some of his business failures.
[15:28] - How Brent landed his first business acquisition.
[21:30] - Why slow is fast when it comes to building a successful business.
[22:27] - How to start a company from scratch.
[25:32] - The reasons why business owners sell their companies.
[31:43] - How innovative fee structure works.
[33:04] - The challenges of innovative fee structures and how to overcome them.
[37:22] - Permanent Equity's qualification process for sellers.
Quotes
[04:09] - "It's impossible to make good long-term decisions with short-term capital. There are just constraints that short-term capital puts on you. If you're only going to work with somebody for a couple of years, you're going to treat them differently than if you plan on working with them for 15 or 20 years." - Brent Beshore
[12:58] - "We are all operators. We actually don't even consider ourselves to be investors. Yes, we use the investment of capital to allow us to work in these companies and leverage our time against the resources that we've been entrusted but we don't consider ourselves investors." - Brent Beshore
[15:00] - "If you want to look and see what success looks like, look at the people who are successful and ask yourself if that's the life and resources that you want." - Brent Beshore
[21:33] - "To people who are starting, I couldn't agree more that the only way to get good at something is to do it. I would also say though, that I think there's a temptation that you don't realize how long you have to do something to actually get good at it." - Brent Beshore
Links
Brent Beshore
Permanent Equity
University of Missouri
MediaCross
The Messy Marketplace: Selling Your Business in a World of Imperfect Buyers
Emily Holdman
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Tommy on LinkedIn
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