The Close M&A Podcast with Caber Hill Advisors
Sep 3, 2026 · 39 min · 10 segments
Craig Castelli sits down with corporate M&A attorney Mark Ryerson of Dickinson Wright to discuss practical dealmaking, current market conditions, and preparing a business for sale. They explore why…
That's like a pretty boring topic probably to most people watching here, even though I can talk to you about it for hours and ultimately do at times.
And, you know, I think what's interesting about your practice is you cover a fairly broad spectrum in terms of not just sector, but stage of the company, because you do a lot of early stage work.
Do you find that the way you approach negotiating on behalf of you know, an earlier stage company and structuring their series A or series B might be different than how you approach negotiating on behalf of a private equity firm who's buying a company with 30 million of EBITDA.
And obviously the documents and the deal structures themselves are different, but are there, are the things that your radar is up for in one and not the other or things that you might want to fight harder for in one and not the other?
So, I mean, excellent point, right? You know, the first thing is, you know, I hesitate to say sophistication, but on the early stage company side, you're doing a ton of explanation and handholding and making sure that they appreciate the decisions that they're making and the consequences of those decisions that you're making.
And on the M&A side, again, largely speaking, if it's an acquirer, they're going to be sophisticated, have done it before, know the integration process.
Or if it's a seller, while there's concerns about trailing liabilities and indemnities and things like that, and you need to get the transaction right, they have less of a concern on a long-term go-forward situation, right? So you're really kind of approaching it differently.
On our startup clients, we're always trying to position them for short-term and long-term success, which is difficult when they're trying to hold on to as much as possible but don't have the funding to do it themselves or hold on to it, right? And then on the M&A side, you're trying to get either a successful acquisition or a successful exit.
And those metrics look a lot differently than setting up somebody for continued success and continued involvement on a go-forward basis.
That's like a pretty boring topic probably to most people watching here, even though I can talk to you about it for hours and ultimately do at times.
And, you know, I think what's interesting about your practice is you cover a fairly broad spectrum in terms of not just sector, but stage of the company, because you do a lot of early stage work.
Do you find that the way you approach negotiating on behalf of you know, an earlier stage company and structuring their series A or series B might be different than how you approach negotiating on behalf of a private equity firm who's buying a company with 30 million of EBITDA.
And obviously the documents and the deal structures themselves are different, but are there, are the things that your radar is up for in one and not the other or things that you might want to fight harder for in one and not the other?
So, I mean, excellent point, right? You know, the first thing is, you know, I hesitate to say sophistication, but on the early stage company side, you're doing a ton of explanation and handholding and making sure that they appreciate the decisions that they're making and the consequences of those decisions that you're making.
And on the M&A side, again, largely speaking, if it's an acquirer, they're going to be sophisticated, have done it before, know the integration process.
Or if it's a seller, while there's concerns about trailing liabilities and indemnities and things like that, and you need to get the transaction right, they have less of a concern on a long-term go-forward situation, right? So you're really kind of approaching it differently.
On our startup clients, we're always trying to position them for short-term and long-term success, which is difficult when they're trying to hold on to as much as possible but don't have the funding to do it themselves or hold on to it, right? And then on the M&A side, you're trying to get either a successful acquisition or a successful exit.
And those metrics look a lot differently than setting up somebody for continued success and continued involvement on a go-forward basis.
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