Our guest for this week’s episode of M&A Masters is Jon Finger. Jon is a Partner at McGuireWoods LLC in Dallas, and his practice focuses on private equity and corporate transactions. He and his partners were the first in the area of independent sponsors to create a private equity practice dedicated to independent sponsors. Jon and his partners also created “Deal-by-Deal”, a podcast that focuses on the independent sponsor community of the M&A market.

Jon says, of this independent sponsor relationship, “Many of these sellers are selling their baby – this has been, and will be, their legacy. Finding independent sponsors who are really appreciative of that is a big part of what we look for in our network for the clients that we want to be working with.”

We discuss the importance of building a network and prioritizing the independent sponsor relationships, as well as:

• The difference between independent sponsors and other buyers
• Perceptions of private equity
• Finding creative ways and best practices to partner with independent sponsors
• The ideal client of the independent sponsor community
• Hybrid models of independent sponsors and private equity funds
• And more