Recapping Brokerfest: High-Quality Deal Flow From Top-Tier Business Brokers

Last month, Axial hosted its first ever broker-focused conference, in pursuit of its mission to connect all of the lower middle market’s M&A participants around high-quality transaction opportunities. 

The inaugural “Brokerfest” provided three hours of one-on-one meetings for a highly curated group of business brokers — all working on deals of at least $1M in EBITDA — and a select group of private equity firms, family offices, independent sponsors, and search funds. And while the business broker community isn’t always recognized for having the most high-quality, targeted deal flow, Axial Brokerfest tells a different story.

Transaction Snapshot

In total, 49 qualified deals ($1M+ EBITDA across all industries except real estate) were shared with buy-side participants at Brokerfest. The breakdown of deals is as follows:

Size Range: $5M – $75M Revenue / $1.075M – $8.6M EBITDA

Industries included:

• Business Services
• Construction
• Consumer Products
• Distribution
• Energy
• Healthcare/Dental
• HVAC
• Manufacturing
• Retail/e-Commerce
• Software
• Specialty Contracting
• Telecom
• Transportation

Geographies included: 

• Southeast U.S.
• Midwest U.S.
• Northeast U.S.
• West Coast U.S.
• Canada

The Proof is in the Data

Just because a transaction meets certain financial criteria does not necessarily mean it’s a high-quality opportunity. That’s why we took a deeper dive into each of these transactions to gauge how many recommendations were being populated for each project as well as how many buyers were then pursuing each deal via the Axial platform. 

Of the 49 deals that were shared at the event, there were 1,961 recommendations (an average of 40 recommendations per deal) and 193 pursuits on those deals from the buy side. This data was collected two weeks after the event took place, meaning within those two weeks, 9.8% of buyers who received these broker transactions in their Axial inbox wanted to continue down the deal funnel and learn more.

In Conclusion…

While there are many generalizations and stereotypes about certain cohorts in the lower middle market, the data speaks for itself. Axial prides itself on providing high-quality deal flow to its members regardless of origin, and because of that, we will continue to create as many opportunities as possible for all members to access the most relevant counterparties for each transaction. 

In the case of business brokers, we look forward to expanding our event offerings to provide more and more opportunities for these Axial members to share their highest-quality projects with Axial buyers. 

To learn more or request information about the next event, please contact [email protected].