Welcome to our January Newsletter.
Below you will find an exciting announcement from me as to a new GT Securities team member, and then some 2022 “year in review” thoughts and a 2023 prospective.
Then, Michelle Mueller will provide compliance updates, and Zaya Bold will do so for collaboration.
To all of our success!
Jay Turo
Managing Director
GT Securities, Inc.
Mr. Randy Fox – GT Securities New Chief Operating Officer
Later this month, Mr. Randy Fox will join us as GT Securities’ new Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Randy will help the Firm and all of its Registered persons further build and professionalize the compliance and deal best practices across the platform and, as importantly, help augment our platform’s product and service offerings so that our bankers have the tools at their disposal to do as many and as varied deals as possible.
Randy brings to GTS over 30 years of securities industry experience to the role, including positions at Franklin Templeton, Citicorp, Charles Schwab, and ATEL Securities. For the past several years, Randy has worked with Portsmouth-Smartlife Financial Group (Investment Advisor) and Portsmouth Financial Services (Broker Dealer), where he was instrumental in developing their B/D and RIA platforms.
Please join me in welcoming him to our team!
2022 year in review and 2023 Prospective
2022 was a challenging year for both the financial markets as a whole and for our middle marker/private equity deal space, especially as to transaction volume.
The combination of the worst public equity performance since 2008, combined with historically fast-rising interest rates, created a “holding pattern” whereby deal counterparties waited for markets to stabilize while being comparably content with the higher nominal returns available in cash.
Exacerbating these domestic headwinds were international challenges. Putin’s February invasion of Ukraine was a harsh negative shock to the global flow of capital into US private equity and M&A. This was most pronounced in the secondary financing market, where deal volumes slowed to a trickle from 2020-21, contributing to the overall slowdown of VC / PE financing activity (in many markets down 30%+).
Here at GT Securities, we were reasonably pleased to see overall activities (mandates and transaction volume) down only 12% from 2021, with 142 mandates spun up on the platform (compared to 225 in 2021), resulting in 55 closed deals (71 in 2021) and aggregate deal volume of approximately $740 million ($850 million in 2021).
The good news is that 2023 is set up to be a bounce-back year. Most of the 2022 market shocks appear behind us and that this year we will again have painted in sharp, positive relief the comparative advantages of the private equity emerging co / middle market asset, operational, and investment class.
I encourage you to reference some of my thoughts here, here, and here on the factors that separate the best makers in our platform, along with completing our 2023 banker survey to update your areas of focus (industry, geography, deal type, special sauce, etc.).
So let’s get deals done in 2023!
It is an honor and a privilege to work with and know the fine professionals in persons of character and integrity on our platform. And this is, of course, the most important compliance and regulatory note for this and every year – bankers on the GTS platform do the right thing, every day and always.
Let’s do this!
Compliance Updates
Introducing Victor Murphy, Compliance Operations Manager. The Firm is excited to announce that Mr. Victor Murphy has recently joined us as our Compliance Operations Manager.
Victor assists the compliance department and our Registered Persons with administrative and regulatory processes and requirements, including U-4 updating, OBA disclosures, Annual Attestations, Continuing Education (CE), and more.
Please join me in welcoming Victor to the team! Note that with Victor joining us, Carl Castro will be transitioning to serve as GT Securities IT Manager.
Michelle Mueller, Chief Compliance Officer
Platform Updates and Deals
Referrals. Do you know an investment banker looking for the benefits of independence and professionalism provided on the GT Securities platform? We are always interested in speaking to highly ethical and credentialed banking professionals to join our platform and we offer credits and bonus for referred bankers. Please reach out to me to learn more. Please reach out to me to learn more.
Investor/Buyer Profile. Los Angeles-based hospitality private equity firm looking to expand investments from hospitality to distribution and manufacturing. The Principles of the firm have participated in investments and projects in excess of $2 billion in assets across the globe. They are searching for Manufacturing/Distribution companies – especially hospitality-based Distribution or Manufacturing companies. If you know of any manufacturing or distribution deals, please reach out for more information and their tear sheet.
Deals. We receive many deal opportunities from our affiliate bankers and external partners, and upon assessing them, we share select deals with our affiliate network.
Zaya Bold, Director of Banking Partnerships
Happy New Year to all!
