Buyside Private (non PE) Practice Groups Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’m a senior associate at one of the EC/VC firms (Gunderson, WSGR, etc.) and do a lot of M&A work. I like my firm a lot, but the nature of these firms is they're mostly sell side work since we represent so many early stage companies who then get sold to bigger fish. I find sellside work draining for various reasons. It’s also hard from a client development perspective since selling your client means losing your client 90% of the time.

Are there any firms with practice areas built around strategic buyers where someone can make this their primary practice?

[The Lsat Airbender]

The big NYC shops all do a decent amount of buy-side M&A and have a stable of repeat customers. One of the things for which "V10" is actually a useful category (but Chambers is still better). The space is dominated by such a small group of firms, so conflicts guarantees that everyone gets a mix of buy-side and sell-side nowadays. Also for that reason, you're unlikely to be able to completely avoid sell-side work.

Sell-side is not so bad for business development when dealing with public M&A because carve-outs, spin-offs, SPACs etc. are so popular. It definitely creates a sort of treadmill for EC/VC.

Or you could go in-house at a FAANG or something.

[Anonymous User]

The big NYC shops all do a decent amount of buy-side M&A and have a stable of repeat customers. One of the things for which "V10" is actually a useful category (but Chambers is still better). The space is dominated by such a small group of firms, so conflicts guarantees that everyone gets a mix of buy-side and sell-side nowadays. Also for that reason, you're unlikely to be able to completely avoid sell-side work.

Sell-side is not so bad for business development when dealing with public M&A because carve-outs, spin-offs, SPACs etc. are so popular. It definitely creates a sort of treadmill for EC/VC.

Or you could go in-house at a FAANG or something.

What is the small handful of firms dominating that space? I don't really know where the cutoff is in Chambers rankings as to whether or not the firm is a major player in the space vs not

[The Lsat Airbender]

What is the small handful of firms dominating that space? I don't really know where the cutoff is in Chambers rankings as to whether or not the firm is a major player in the space vs not

Depends on what the purpose of your question is. If you truly want to specialize in a certain kind of M&A, I'd start by looking at Band 1.

Alternately, look at press releases for the kinds of deals you have in mind (strategic acquisitions) and just record who's repping the buyer.

[Anonymous User]

where do you want to work? latham sf/sv has a fair number of acquisitive clients