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— Dealmakers —
If relationships were money, David Vorhoff would be a rich man. In his two decades as an investment banker, Vorhoff, 52, managing director of McColl Partners in Charlotte, N.C., has served as adviser, friend and all-around go-between to business owners on about 200 assignments, large and small. Sometimes a relationship endures in surprising ways, such as when he coaxed British executive Michael Bailey, former chief executive of British food conglomerate Compass Group plc, out of retirement some years back to start a new food services platform in Charlotte. Bailey says he counts on Vorhoff to come to him with the right ideas. He first met Vorhoff in 1993, when the banker, then with NationsBanc Montgomery Securities Inc., advised Compass on two deals, including a $450 million acquisition of Flagstar Cos.' canteen food and catering business. "In most situations, you go to a few trusted advisers. Dave would be at the top of my list, and that's desperately important in any business climate," says Bailey, now happily unretired and living in Charlotte.
For small, underpowered boutiques like McColl, such relationships matter much more than for larger firms. Vorhoff and his colleagues, most of whom hailed from Charlotte M&A boutique Bowles Hollowell Conner/First Union Securities, knew as much when they recently signed a partnership with an international network of boutiques called Clairfield Partners. The impetus for the partnership came from clients wanting to sell assets overseas. "We were potentially losing opportunities," says the gregarious Vorhoff. On one painful occasion, he says, he referred a client to a rival firm that had offices in London, though the client ultimately failed to find the right buyer. That sent Vorhoff, a man of seemingly inexhaustible energies, and his associates on numerous trans-Atlantic treks, meeting with nearly 20 groups across Europe last year. Their quest narrowed to little-known Clairfield, launched four years ago by a group of advisory firms including London's Carlton Partners LLP, led by former Compass chairman Francis Mackay. Clairfield is structured as a legal partnership comprising nine boutiques, with about 140 bankers in 15 offices across Europe, Australia and New York. In the three months since joining Clairfield, McColl has signed on to about a dozen deals it's involved in with partner firms. "Even in a very tough environment, we've been pleasantly surprised how our dealflow has spiked," Vorhoff says. One client that pulled the plug on a sale process recently due to the soft infrastructure construction market in the U.S. saw openings with at least two potential buyers from France and Spain. "We've reignited talks," he adds. Former Bank of America Corp. chairman and CEO Hugh McColl co-founded his namesake firm in 2001. Even with the markets down about 40%, the firm has fared "better than planned," Vorhoff says. "Dave comes up with creative things, particularly in the current climate when finding deals is not easy," observes Bailey, who now heads TrustHouse Services Group Inc., which, with private equity backing, combined three food outsourcers. Vorhoff, who heads the firm's healthcare group, once saw fit to integrate three independent nuclear medicine imaging operators in the Southeast to create Triad Isotopes Inc., also with PE backing. "None of the companies by themselves would have been attractive to an investor, but Dave managed to bring them together," says Russ Richards, a partner at King & Spalding LLP who worked with him. Vorhoff, a native of New Orleans and a product of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill undergraduate and graduate schools, started at Chase Manhattan Corp.'s healthcare group before joining NationsBank Capital Markets' mergers and acquisitions group in Charlotte, where he settled after a stint in Dallas and New York. Married with four kids, he says his family takes up most of his free time. His remaining energies are reserved for weekend rides on his BMW motorcycle. "With motorcycles it's all about watching for drivers that can plow you over -- kind of like investment banking boutiques keeping an eye on the big firms," he says. "Speed and nimbleness can be a real asset." |
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