Curating Quality Investment Opportunities

Marcia Nelson is the Managing Director at ShareNett. This is a members only global network of professional investors offering curated, quality investment opportunities. In addition, Marcia is the founding partner of Triple C Advisory. She’s spent a great part of her career working with family offices as a Family Office Advisor. Also, Marcia has been a board member for multiple boards, including VentureCapital.org. She is the president of ACG-NY.  Marcia is also a speaker with a great passion for impact investing. She was recently named one of the 2020 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A by Mergers & Acquisitions magazine.

You can listen to the full interview HERE.

Marcia Nelson’s Early Deal-Making Experiences

While growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah, Marcia would have never guessed she was going to end up in the deal-making world! Her initial degree was in education, and she did teach for a few years. When she moved to New York with her fiance she fell in love with the city. She hasn’t looked back since!

After an initial experience with Conde Naste and the fashion industry publishing, Marcia switched gears when the dot com boom appeared. At that point she went back to graduate school, where she earned her MBA. Returning to the business world after completing her degree kicked off her deal-making career. She’s stayed in the industry ever since!

Most of Marcia’s early deals were in the ESOP ring. She enjoyed learning more about how employee stocks worked, as well as how complicated they could be. This opened a whole new world to her, and she was able to work on many related deals during this time. Early on, she was intensely fascinated by UPS’s use of ESOPs in their business.

Boutique Investment Banking

ShareNett is a boutique investment bank. They do traditional investing, but their niche is finding deals from family offices. Once found, they then partner or club with other families. ShareNett sifts through a lot of “noise” so they can filter the best quality investment opportunities for their clients.

Marcia shares their deals typically start around 10 million. She finds ShareNett can be extremely helpful in the 10-100 million dollar range. She really enjoys working in the family office space, and most often finds herself working in the mid-market arena.

One commonality Marcia is seeing with family offices is having a second or third generation who are actively pushing hard for impact investing. This falls in many spheres, including green energy, sustainability, and other ethically-based fields. She also sees many family offices who have made their mark within a specific field or area; she finds they often prefer to continue working within those same spaces with investments moving forward. If branching out, it often occurs in conjunction with another family office that is more familiar with the space.

Outside of all the political wrangling, there seems to be a demographic shift in which younger generations are inheriting wealth and being given more control over where the money is going.

Marcia believes that investments and philanthropy are beginning to be less mismatched. Younger generations are seeking to decrease the mismatch between where the family office is investing and where they are donating. Quality investments that do good are of great interest.

Making money AND doing good, all without having to rely on investment cycles that tend to fluctuate, is a powerful direction that many businesses may be going. Rather than seeking to become a non-profit, it might become more popular to stay for-profit, but use a percentage of proceeds to fuel social movements.

You no longer have to accept lower returns in order to do good! In fact, you can do good and expect comparable returns.

Other Marketplace Trends & Investment Opportunities

Marcia also notes there seems to be an increased interest in bringing manufacturing back to the US. She attributes this to supply chain disruptions as a result of the pandemic. Covid-19 highlighted just how many products we rely on are being manufactured elsewhere and shipped in.

Many businesses are using repurposing to make this work. They’re finding with small shifts, they can manufacture more of what they need here. Although supply chain issues will never fully go away, adaptations can be made to decrease disruptions.

However, there may be a difference between various types of technology. For instance, there’s a huge difference between bringing steel back, versus producing technological components here. Marcia agrees, noting that manufacturing trends are more manufacturing focused. As a result, many quality investments will likely be made in the US manufacturing markets.

Game makers and recreational manufacturers are also seeing a boom right now, as a result of the pandemic. That might be a short term change, but could also be part of driving deals at the moment. Because people are looking for more ways to spend time outside or engage in private recreation, it won’t be surprising to see continued growth in this area. At least for the time being, recreation is growing!

I noted that Rha and I are in the process of looking around for non-metro-based housing for the future. Based on how things have been going, it seems like it might be a quality investment! We typically split our time between major metros in New York and California, and we’re starting to think somewhere in the mountains might be a better bet. Although that’s not something everyone can do, it may start to become more common in the future. This is especially true for those who are looking at purchasing new properties.

Multi-Generational Investing Families

Older generations may have a desire to make quality investments in businesses that have a solid track history and have been around for awhile. Most technology companies, however, have less of a long term history. Younger generations may often be more excited about making investments with new tech, especially as they often feel more comfortable with the tools. 

However, Marcia notes that if you’ve seen one family office….you’ve seen one family office. They tend to be very unique, and are always composed of individuals with their own interests, desires, and comfort with risk.

One of Marcia’s clients made a lot of money in the gas and oil industry. Although they are glad to have made their money, they are excited to pivot forward by turning their attention to green energy. Tthey recognize that gas and oil were brand new, generations ago, and that they did have many positive impacts in terms of growth and expansion. However, attitudes evolve and shift. Families do to, which is a key point to remember if working with a family office!

As families evolve in their thinking, Marcia also notes that it is vital to remain open to their growth and development. Giving them space to change, and working through what that means for their portfolios, is essential.

Marcia’s interview was incredible. To learn more about her role, including a note on ways in which her job sometimes makes her feel like a therapist, listen in today!

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal-Ready Assessment today!