From banker to searcher to CEO to founder of Panther Equity: David Eshaghian’s journey through the lower middle market

My guest today is David Eshaghian, Founder of Panther Equity Group. Panther Equity pursues investments in lower middle market businesses generally providing mission-critical services, products, and solutions.

David’s responsibilities at Panther include deal sourcing and qualification, transaction execution, firm strategy, portfolio management, and investor relations. Before Panther Equity Group, David was the CEO of a Managed IT Services Provider (MSP), formerly known as The Tech Info Group (‘TTIG’) which he acquired in 2017 through a self-funded search fund vehicle. In 2020, David merged TTIG with a California-based ISP / CLEC to create a comprehensive Technology Service Provider – ‘InfoNetworks’. Previously, David was an M&A banker at Guggenheim advising both public and private companies on strategic transactions. David is a California native and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

In this episode, we walk through David’s origin story chapter by chapter, starting with his self-funded search fund. We cover deal sourcing and how he sourced TTIG, how outsourcing customer service functions to Serbia saved 70% in labor costs, the exit story for TTIG, and how he is orienting the development of his investment firm Panther Equity Group.

This podcast is produced by the team at Axial (www.axial.com). Axial is an online platform that makes it easy for small business owners to confidentially research and connect with top-ranked M&A advisors and capital partners. I am your host, Peter Lehrman, Founder and CEO of Axial. In every episode, we aim to explore the vast world of small business M&A, interviewing both the proven and the emerging owners, operators, investors, and advisors whose strategies and methods are being put to the test.

If you enjoy the podcast, let us know by giving us a review on Apple or Spotify. If you’d like to go deeper, head to Axial.com, where there are dozens of recorded Axial member roundtables, downloadable tools for dealmakers, quarterly league-table rankings, and lots of other useful information. If you’re a business owner, professional acquirer, or M&A advisor, you can start using Axial for free at Axial.com.

Discussion points:

• David’s background and war stories as a CEO
• Biggest changes as CEO – standardizing SLAs with customers
• Leveraging remote talent in Serbia for most customer service issues
• Hiring executive-level talent to build an organization beyond David
• 2020 – the exit timeline, Covid, and going remote
• How TTIG merged with a key vendor came
• The decision to found Panther Equity Group
• 2022’s interest rate increases and their impact on deal structure
• David’s thoughts and plans for Panther Equity Group

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Resources:

David Eshaghian LinkedIn

Panther Equity Group

Peter Lehrman LinkedIn

Axial Website