Clint Bundy with the Bundy Group

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Finance, M&A, Bundy Group, Industrial services, Energy, Healthcare, Technology services, Business sale, Capital raise, Private equity, Company growth, Automation, Digitalization, Market trends, Strategic buyers

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01:05

Welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting-edge, industry-focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat. Grab your work boots and let's go.

01:22

As always, welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you for your continued support of the number one industrial-related podcast in the universe that celebrates you, industrial professionals all around the world. You're bold. You're brave. You dare greatly. You innovate. You collaborate. You're solving problems each and every day, and quite frankly, you are making the world a better place. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for your continued perseverance in just making the world a better place. You are the heroes in this story. It's it's an amazing, amazing time. You know that as well as I do. It's a renaissance. Keep at it. We need you to succeed in the hot seat. Clint Bundy of the Bundy Group, and we're going to be talking about finance. We're going to be talking about all of the solutions that they can provide for you as an industrial company to make sure that you you have the right money, or maybe you need to move on, or maybe they have the the bench. They have the ability to be able to help you succeed in whatever financial efforts you're trying to put forth. Bundy Group, Clint Bundy, paper, pencil, note. Let's go. Yeah, there are a couple of things that I like talking about, as you can probably imagine, because well, it's industrial talk, and I like talking about pretty much anything dealing with industry. So it, I I like talking about people. You need people, yeah, you just do, and the people are important, and the people that will help you succeed. So you have to create that culture. I really like having those conversations because I think that everything within industry is people. That's why we are industry. That's why that hashtag is here. Is because it's it's really about people and how you can work with people and get things done and make things a success. The other thing I like talking about, in industry, yeah, industry. They have plenty of technology, and it's out there, and you're stubbing your toe on it, and it's it covers everything, and it's moving at an incredible pace, and I love that conversation just because I always I always get to the point where it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you what you can do that amazing yeah I always like that talking talking about that and finally because you need it I like talking about finance I like talking about how you because you need it. Yeah, you do. You got to figure that out. And I because I've run businesses a number of times. Yeah, that's always a topic of conversation. And I've came to realize ever so fast. Didn't take long, by the way. I need trusted individuals, and because finance is so critical to your success, you need you need trusted individuals that really understand and navigate those waters. And it's like, hey, you could do this. Hey, what about this? Hey, how about this angle? You know, things like that, and then take whatever's in your head, right? Whatever's percolating in your cranium, whatever that looks like, be able to sort of bring it to sort of a financial, you know, solution. Bundy Group, Clint Bundy. Hey, they have a podcast too. It's out there on industrial. Talk. It's got a backlink. You know what they do? They talk finance. They're talking about old money. Anyway, it's all good. All right. I'm going to harp on it again because I think you need it. Now that sounds so harsh, but I'd like for you to listen. That'd be great. There are reasons why you need to tell your story. Now that we're venturing into that world of AI, there's a lot of AI-generated voices out there and faces out there. You need to bring that human element. You need to tell that story. Don't let AI do it for you. You need to do it, and and people know. You know, people will know. Maybe it'll get better, but people know that it's an AI. It's it needs to be you, and and be able to push forward to be able to do that effectively is important for your business. Important for the resiliency of your business. Important for people to have more eyeballs and ears on what you do, so do that. Industrial talk can help you with that in a big way. We look at it from 4.44.

06:09

Do a podcast, tell your story. Great. Do a podcast, tell your customer story. Absolutely fantastic. Have a platform that allows you to pursue your targets, and from my perspective, because of my background and what I did with a number of my businesses, it helped open doors. It just does. It's just you can approach anybody, anybody. If you have a podcast or you have a platform that that it could be YouTube. I don't care. It could be something like that, and you can approach them and say, "Hey, let's tell your story. Could be a prospect. Could be an opportunity. You know what happens in that case? You develop a friendship, and in that friendship, you create opportunities, and then finally, and I'm a big fan of this one. It happens all the time, you go to conferences. You're planning your conferences now. Where do we go? How do we do this? And you're doing it, and you're mulling it over in your head on what what you need to do. Well, here's here's a game changer, right? You go to the conferences because you want to reach out. Now, the typical model is, hey, I got business cards. Let me hand them out. Let me have them. That to me is like, hey, you know the the general focus is is that the the strategy for success? I don't know. I can debate that. But what if you had on site the ability to interview people all over that area? Just doesn't matter. I do it all the time. It works all the time. I have connections that have happened as a result of conferences. That's what you want from a conference. You want next steps. You want the opportunity to grow, and to be able to do that, you got to have that relationship and that friendship. Broadcast, broadcast from your booth. Talk to these individuals. Yeah, it's it's not it's not rocket science. It's not SpaceX stuff. It's just the reality of it. It's it's good stuff. So those are the four steps. There's more in there. You got it. You you you got to do the marketing. We do that. You got to do that whole pushing out and being able to get more eyeballs and ears on your your product and solutions. Yes, and the customers and you tag and you do all of that stuff. You got to do all that. Yeah, but but it's a content generating machine. There. Okay, I'm off the I'm off the soapbox right here. I've stepped off right there. Clint Bundy in the hot seat talking finance. They know what they're doing, by the way. Just they're they're good. All right, enjoy the conversation, Clint. Welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for finding time in your busy schedule. I am excited to have this conversation. How are you doing today?

09:01

I'm doing great, Scott. Thanks for having me on today.

09:03

Shut up. That's it. That's it. We can wrap it up now. I can say shut up. Now, I mean, I if there's anything that I like to geek out on, it's anything that deals with finance, M and A, and that's what that's what the Bundy Group. That's what Clint brings to the table, and we're going to have a great time, just because there's a lot happening in industry, and there's a bundy group leading the way. So that's that's it. Okay, there you go. Before we get into that conversation about what you do, you need to give us a little background on who Clint is. Please let us know.

09:39

Well, again, thanks for having me on, Scott. I'll give you just a really quick version on me. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, but grew up in Southwest Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia. Beautiful

09:51

country, beautiful,

09:52

beautiful country. Southwest Virginia mountains. Even though I'm in a flat country now, I grew up in the mountains, and I miss them every day. I'm here to Torre Hill, though, so that's what's got me in Charlotte. Plus, Charlotte's a pretty good town to be a finance guy in. Yeah, yeah,

10:11

that's that's good. When I was doing a project for a utility company, I can't remember. Anyway, they had a I had to go to Roanoke, and then I said, "Hey, this is great. Let me go up and drive up and and to the Appalachia. Is Apple Appalachia right? The mountains there.

10:32

That's right. That's right. The Blue Ridge Mountain Trail. Blue Ridge Mountains. That

10:37

right. And I go up there, and herds of deer. I was so nervous. I thought I was going to just, you know, not not make it. I'm going to hit one of these deers, but it's gorgeous, gorgeous, peaceful. Okay, that's it. Pretty

10:54

area it is. Yeah, no, I grew up there, but look, I've been in Charlotte, and our company's headquartered in Charlotte for the past past, you know, let's call it 20 years, and I've got a wife and two kids, which keep me busy when I'm not working.

11:10

Yeah, I like that. How old are you, kids?

11:13

I've got a high school sophomore that we're we're two months away from her driving, and then I have a 13 and a half year old son who is into a little bit everything between sports and scouts and everything else that teenage boys are into.

11:28

Scouts, that's great. My son was an Eagle Scout because I was pushing him hard.

11:35

Well, you know, behind every Eagle is a parent pushing an Eagle, and as an Eagle Scout, I can attest to that.

11:41

Yeah, see, I my my motto was: if I have to camp with you, you're going to succeed. If I have to lay out on this because I have to be dad, yeah, you're going to succeed, and you're not going to let me down.

11:56

It's most Eagle Scouts will tell you their parents had a similar strategy. It can't be the kid in itself. That was

12:03

great. I wouldn't change. It was great. It's all good. All right. We've got the Bundy Group. Of course, that's namesake. You've been in business for 20 years. Did you say

12:15

12:23

gonna say it had to be part of your dad's. Yeah, I was gonna. I started at age four.

12:31

I was middle school actually when he started, but close.

12:36

I was a savant, a financial savant. Take us just briefly a little bit about the Bundy Group. Just what do you what are you all about?

12:46

Yeah, just kind of the very high level. My father started the company 37 years ago with the purpose then, and what is still the purpose today, of representing privately held businesses in two main areas, and that's in a business sale or a capital raise event, so it could be an owner who wants to retire, an owner who wants to who who is looking to take the company to a next level and needs a partner to help them do it. It could be one of 100 reasons why a business owner or shareholders may hire us, but we're there to help them maximize their value in some kind of transactional event, and help them find the best fit from a partner buyer standpoint. So that's again very high level who we are.

13:31

Yeah. Do you do you have pretty do you have segments that you focus in on like verticals? What do you have verticals that you feel comfortable with?

13:39

Wait, we do. We we've got three main verticals, which are business and industrial services. Which within that we include our energy and infrastructure work. The second one is technology enabled services, and then the third is healthcare. So, you know, we we have a very good team that operates very well in those those Verticals.

14:02

Explain, expand a little bit. I I get the no. You need to explain a little bit about those verticals. What like in energy? What? Just explain a little bit more.

14:16

Sure. I'm a case study kind of guy, so if you don't mind, I'll use case studies. Yeah, please case

14:22

study it.

14:23

So business and industrial services. Let's start there. And I, you know, certainly a lot of different companies. And I know you come from industry, Scott. So you worked with companies that probably strikes me fit into that first bucket that I just mentioned. We, I'll give you an example of two different companies we've worked with, one is a company called Metal Tech, which is a fabrication and outsourced industrial services company headquartered in Eastern North Carolina. The second generation in the company had a good management team in place. They wanted. To grow further, and the second generation wanted to get some diversified, get some liquidity for their estate planning purposes. So we were hired to help them find a good fit partner who would pay a good transaction value and be that long-term partner. And we ended up running a process and linking them up with a group called Keswick Capital. So that's one example in an industrial services company. Give it one for energy. Energy is a company we just represented in a sale called Nexus Power, which is a distribution manufacturers rep system integration company headquartered in the Western U.S. That does a lot of work with utilities, data centers, other energy providers. We just represented them in a process that just closed a couple weeks ago, where they took on a new capital partner called Madison River Capital, who's going to help the management team grow the company to kind of that next level. So that's my first bucket. But you hand it

16:02

off. You don't have any equity or any any type of position in these transactions.

16:09

I do not. We are strictly there on the side of the owner to help them maximize value and help them find the best fit. So I'm. I get we get confused oftentimes with your investment bank, and they think, "Oh, you're you're private equity, and that's a common misconception. And we correct people and say, "Actually, we're not private equity; we're advisors, and we're on the side of the end, or private equity's on the other side of the fence.

16:34

Yeah, see, that's a good clarification. Just because there's a lot, lot of moving parts when you do that, and it's like, "Okay, we're, and they just move along to the next deal. I would imagine sure, yeah. This Nexus power, that's exciting time. If there's a conversation to have, it's data centers and power.

16:56

We we have a lot of clients we're working with right now who are tied into that market, and boy, have their yeah. Energy used to be kind of a boring space. Energy services used to be boring in the past four years due to the AI data center. It has changed dramatically,

17:12

and it is a challenging conversation because here's the market. The market's saying, "I need power. Give me power. I need it yesterday. Give me power yesterday, and here's here's the manufacturing side going. I get it, and and here's the utilities. How ho ho ho! You know, there's just so many. It's it's an exciting. It's a wild west again. Well,

17:35

and and you see the money that's flowing in there from the private equity community because the the question though is you know looking at this from an investor side and again I'm not a buyer investor on the side of the company, but how long does this train keep rolling? And so buyers when they're evaluating acquisition opportunities, a big thing they're looking at is can they look at a company's projections and their backlog, and get a sense for how big the moat is around their value proposition, and get a sense for how much longer they have on runway for growth, and that's a big part of our job is telling that story for the benefit of the client. See, it it it

18:16

makes complete sense, and quite frankly, especially today, you want a trusted Sherpa on that journey. There's a lot of lot of stuff going there, you know. Okay, for the second vertical, I got the I got the med tech. By the way, you need to go to MD and M West, which is a huge med tech show. Anyway, I digress. So the other one is technology enablement. I think you said what is that? Tech

18:45

tech services, tech enabled services. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that? And we, I'll give you again. I'll give you some examples there. First, within that, we do a lot with automation and industrial technology. Yep. So again, I'll use case study example examples. I could use a number here. We just recently sold a company in St. Louis, Missouri, called LangTech. It's a what's called a control system integration company owned by a husband and wife team that had built out a very strong, high-growth company, good management team in place beneath them. They were at a point where they didn't have kids in the business. The management team was running the company. They saw lots of opportunity for growth, and we ran a competitive process where we got a lot of interest on behalf of Steve and Linda, the owners, and ultimately the company was acquired by a buyer called SJE, which is a strategic platform, which is majority owned by a private equity group called Audacs. So that was an exciting transaction, and we're a year actually we're a year past close. Both the the buyer and the seller both said things are going great. We're going like crazy.

20:05

Oh, isn't that great? That's outstanding. What happens when you go into an order? Hi, I'm Scott. I need your services. You come on in. You evaluate my business. Whatever the that mechanism is, and then you find that my management team is weak and lacking in some areas. Do what do you do?

20:25

Yeah, good question. So we spend a lot of time before we're even engaged in getting to know a company. You know, we're we're a big believer and do a lot of practice swings in the tee box before you go up and strike it for real, using the golf analogy, and if we find whether it be there's a weakness in the management team, in the preparation phases of an engagement, or there's problems with financials that need to be dealt with, cleaned up, if they're lacking, for instance, in a CFO who they need one to get through a transaction sale process, you know we're not afraid to make those recommendations on the front end. I mean we have to have we want to build trust with the client. They we're kind of in the foxhole together, and they're the decision maker. But they need to trust us, and we always want to give them advice that puts them in the best position of strength possible to get a great outcome. And we find most clients, if not all, as long as we explain our logic about, hey, here this could be a problem or these could be potential issues, they understand and they say, okay, what do I need to do to solve that? Then before we go to market to talk to parties,

21:38

vital, yeah, you you want to set them up for the greatest possible outcome and success. Yeah, I I just imagine. With all that said, looking at your business, what have you seen? What what's what's piquing your interest as a company? What because quite frankly, being in the business that you are, you see a lot of things, you're you're you're hearing a lot of things, you're reading a lot of things, you're doing a lot of studying and all that stuff. Being on this side of the mic and having conversations with many, what I'm interested in knowing what what sort of is piquing your interest.

22:19

First, what I love about my job is every client and every engagement we work on is different. It keeps me mentally sharp. It keeps me interested. I love we're client service focused, so we love building the relationship with each owner, each client, learning about their business, and that's just really fun and exciting. I think the other thing is there's just a lot of opportunity out there for privately held businesses. You know, my dad started this company in the late '80s. It was a very different M and A market. Not nearly as many capital options. Not nearly as many strategic buyer options. So if you were an owner and owned a business and you wanted to exit, if you didn't have kids or a management team to give it to, then your options for finding capital for selling were much more limited than they are today, and and so I think for me that's if you could take a business that you own, if you could grow it the right way, if you can be our big four legs of the store, building a company with stability, profitability, growth, and scale. Kind of, if you can achieve those four legs of the stool, then you put yourself in a position where you have a lot of options that you can then go to market and see what's the best for me to, whether it be getting a great valuation or a great partner that can help go to the next, you know, next mountain. And that's to me very exciting for privately held businesses.

23:45

So you you stick within the private. I was going to ask if you venture into public and start to dabble in the world of taking companies public, saying, "Hey, I need another form of capital. I need to expand. I'm doing this. I want to go here. Do you do you head on down that, or do you stay within the the private?

24:03

But Bundygrove does not work in the public realm for yeah go privates or taking a company public. We my prior role before I came back to work with my father, I did work at a larger corporate investment bank. We did that, but you know those are different animals when you're working those public deals. My roots, you know, growing up in the business are in the privately held market. It's a market I know. It's I enjoy. I mean, we're able. Our teams are able to offer a lot of value, so that's why we stay centered there.

24:34

That's good because I believe whatever you look at the market, you look at the pie. Let's put let's play some pie out there. There's there's there's companies within that pie that are going that are small, mid, whatever, whatever revenue range that might be. But the reality is, is that are you seeing, given the nature of the economy now, is there a drive? There is, are there businesses? I need partners. I need capital. I need money to expand to respond to what I see in the marketplace. Because if I had a nickel every time talking about automation or or digitalization or far be it from me AI and how do I use that? And I want to expand. I want to grow. Are you are you seeing that?

25:26

26:40

No, again, go go right back to you, Clint. You you don't you don't have to be a cowboy in this. You can find good individuals to help you along, trusted, and and I I don't see any other way of getting around it, especially when we're talking about and and and again, it's I have this conversation with my wife, and then she glosses over. But nonetheless, I I I persevere, Clint. I just said, well, I don't care if you gloss over. I'm going to continue to talk about it. And and when we start talking about the push to to nearshore, reshore, expansion of manufacturing capacity, because whatever the market is saying, I need more of what you manufacture. That's a capital conversation. That is, what what are the options that exist out there today? You know, and and you know, like your you know what you were saying about your dad. They were limited. Now there's there's a lot, relatively speaking.

27:44

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. No, I would agree with that, and and every situation is different, and that's why the when we go run a process, we kind of custom our list of potential either financial sponsors, i.e. private equity or strategic buyers, or a combination of both, based off the situation and the needs and objectives of the client. I mean, the client's going to ultimately-they're the decision maker, and they're going to determine what they tell us is going to determine which way we advise them to go in terms of options to explore and process to run.

28:18

Yeah, just like anything else, it's-it's a relationship. It's you know it's it's conversation and it's a relationship with people. All this other stuff can be you know worked on, but but if I don't trust you, or I don't we don't see eye to eye, or you don't hear my vision, yeah. And no, that's that's not ideal. Where do you see it going? What what's that thing on the horizon? What what's piquing your interest in the sense of that future? I mean, I got it. We we got all the other stuff that's happening out there, but I'm I'm interested in knowing definitely from a from your perspective.

28:57

You know, I I think first the fundamentals of the M and A market are going to stay there. I mean, my crystal ball is no better than anybody else's, but the M and A market will have its peaks and it'll have its valleys, and that's just standard for any market. But there's going to continue to be a lot of consolidation and investment activity among attractive, growth-oriented sectors. I think what's exciting for me, and I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders, a lot of family-owned businesses, management-owned companies. You know, there is tremendous amounts of opportunity for growth, especially with the solutions we've got out there today, with the AI solutions, with the automation solutions. Yeah, you can take. I have met companies before at a conference one year. Well, we're a million in revenue and we've got 10 employees, and then I'll see them two years later and they're up. Well, we're 25 million in revenue and we've got 50 employees and we're doing 30 in revenue and six in EBITDA and it's just mind blowing. It's like wow. To take 20 years to build that can, if it's done the right way, and it's not easy, can be done much more quickly. I think that's very exciting. Lots of value to be.

30:09

Is you know what sort of gets me all excited is is the disruptive mindset. So you have you have these individuals. They'll say, "Well, well, why can't you? Can you? Are you kidding me? Can you say, 'Yeah, we can do it. We can figure it out. We can make it happen. We can, you know, and then be very disruptive with that. I love it. And then, and then they got to go. How do I find? I got the idea. This is great. It's exciting. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, all right. You were absolutely running for Clint. I love this. See, I can keep on going and going and going, but we can't because we gotta we gotta put an intro and an outro, and then it extends it to 30 minutes. How do people get a hold of you if they're saying, "Hey, I need more information. Clint's a nice guy. I want to be able to collaborate with him, and and I've got needs, and I want to talk to Clint. How do? How would I do that?

31:05

Yeah, Scott, the best ways of LinkedIn. Just five. Got him there. I coached him.

31:09

I coached him because it is. That's the way to go, man. Absolutely wonderful, Clint. Hey, can I put your pocket? By the way, you have a podcast.

31:18

Bunny Group Insights.

31:21

Yeah. So we're gonna have that out there. Do you mind if I have a backlink? You have to say yes. You're on a podcast. You can't say, "Well, no, Scott, I don't think so.

31:28

I'd be honored if you did, Scott. I

31:30

will. I'll make it. We'll make it happen. Most definitely, we'll get that backlink to so so you industrial professional will also understand the M and A side of what Clint does-that's what we need to do. Fantastic, my friend. Thank you very much, Charlotte, North Carolina, right there. Home of the, if I remember, that's NASCAR, right?

31:52

NASCAR Hall of Fame is here. That's great. Yeah.

31:54

Yeah. There you go. All right. That's pretty much tapped out on. Yeah. There it is. All right. We're going to wrap it up on the other side. We're going to have all of the contact information for Clint out there. So stay tuned. We will be right back.

32:08

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

32:14

Yep, I'm thinking about it. You're thinking about it. Everybody is thinking about it. What do we do to rebuild America's workforce, restore America's capability? It's all hands on deck. We need solutions, and everybody needs to be part of the solution. Here's an event right there, right behind me. As you can tell, that's Build Freedom Summit. Yep, October 20 to the 21st. It's in Galveston Island Convention Center, Galveston, Texas. You just go out to buildfreedomsummit.org, find out more. Be a part of the solution. Don't just sit on the sidelines and just complain because you can't find anybody. You need to be a part of it. I'll be there. I'll be broadcasting. I'll be speaking with some of the most passionate individuals that are focused on rebuilding America's workforce. Again, October 20 to the 21st, Galveston, Texas. You got to be there because I'm going to be there, and I want to talk to you. See you there. Clint is the man. Not there, man. Clint. Here's the high priority connection. His contact information, of course, is just out there in industrial talks. So you don't even have to go to LinkedIn. His LinkedIn stat card is right there. It's all ready to go. So that's one thing. Two, you you you you make it because you you you need insights, and he's just an open book. His team is just an open book. It's just an amazing time. All right, reach out to him. That's a must connect. Great conversation. Great team. Great individual. I used "great" in that sentence quite a bit. All right. I didn't mean to harp on the intro, but we need you to succeed. To succeed, people need to know you, and to know you, you're going to have to tell your story. Don't let AI just step in. Don't let that happen. The reality is, one, tell your story. Two: tell your customers' stories. Three: tell the prospect's story. That's a good one. That's sticky. You get stickiness. And then at conferences, yeah, you're there. You're telling their story too. It all works. It does. Trust me. It's a game changer. It's disruptive, and you need to do it. All right, I say it all the time: be bold, be brave, dare greatly, hang out with Clint, and you're going to change the world. We're going to have another great conversation shortly, and as always, stay tuned.