Rising Stars of M&A - How Volatility, Inflation and Rising Interest Rates are Influencing Private Equity M&A Activity

Natalie Asher is a Managing Director at SLATE Partners with 15 years’ experience in consulting and M&A advisory, including a decade dedicated to helping family/founders and private equity business owners navigate the M&A sales process. As an M&A advisor, Natalie employs a thoughtful and approachable manner to overseeing and negotiating all phases of each sell-side engagement.

Natalie has been with SLATE Partners since its founding in 2014. Prior to SLATE, she was with Cherry Creek Family Offices, a family office with a growth-stage private equity arm managing ~$1 billion of assets. Prior to CCFO, Natalie held roles within investment banking, private equity, and technology strategy consulting. Natalie is a member of the Association for Corporate Growth and Women of M&A Network. She holds a BSBA in finance, magna cum laude, from Colorado State University.

Adi Leonard is a Vice President on Bow River Capital’s Private Equity team. In this role, Adi is responsible for originating, executing and monitoring investments in private businesses. She also leads industry analysis, company due diligence, financial valuation and investment structuring efforts for recapitalization transactions. Bow River Capital’s Private Equity team takes a hands on approach to working with owner-operated businesses in industrial services, business services, and healthcare services industries to execute on scalable growth strategies.  

Adi joined Bow River Capital in 2016 and currently serves on the board of directors of Progressive Roofing, One10, and NextEdge Networks. She also served on the Board of prior portfolio company, Veregy. She graduated with a BSBA in Finance with minors in Economics, Leadership and Biology from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.

As a member of the Corporate Group, Bill Peffer focuses his practice on the areas of mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance. With over a decade of experience doing deals, Bill has represented over 100 buyers, sellers, borrowers, and lenders in all types of transactions, from closely-held equity redemptions of $50,000 to syndicated credit facilities and acquisitions in excess of $2 billion.

As transactional counsel, Bill brings a pragmatic and closing-oriented approach to each deal, helping clients achieve their goals by identifying, understanding, and mitigating the risks inherent in business transactions.  Bill takes time to ensure that his clients clearly understand their obligations and liabilities while staying focused on issues with real-world implications.

In addition to serving as transaction counsel, he also serves as outside general counsel for a variety of privately-held businesses on matters related to governing documents, private placements, contract drafting, corporate governance, real estate matters, and financing opportunities.

Chris Picardi began his career at KeyBank in 2011 and currently serves as a Senior Vice President and Sales Leader in the Colorado Commercial banking group where he focuses on M&A transactions. Prior to KeyBank, Chris was an Institutional Sales Associate for D.A. Davidson’s Equity Capital Markets Division.
Chris graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance and Real Estate and earned a Masters of Business Administration degree with a focus on Finance from the University of Colorado Denver.  Chris is a Board Member and serves on the Executive Committee of the Young Americans Center for Financial Education, a non-profit whose mission is to teach young people about finances, economics and business, enabling them to become financially literate and ensure long-term stability for themselves and their families. Chris was named as a Top 40 under 40 Business Professional in 2020 by the Denver Business Journal, and in 2022 Chris was named as Top 25 Young Professional- GenXYZ by Colorado Business Magazine. Chris also enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children.

Chris and Matt founded EQA for the purpose of offering top level transaction expertise and sophistication to successful companies that are often overlooked in the investment banking world. The mission of EQA is to help these high-quality companies transact with institutional buyers and facilitate exit success for owners beyond what they thought possible.

Before founding EQA, Chris worked in the M&A industry as an attorney, CPA, and lender. He believes strongly in a holistic transaction advisory approach, which allows him to broadly share guidance with clients on a variety of business topics from his many different roles within the M&A industry.

A native of Iowa, Chris moved to Denver in 2013. He received a bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance from Drake University while also a member of the Men’s varsity tennis team. He holds a master’s degree in Accounting and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa. Chris is a licensed CPA in the states of Iowa and Colorado and is a licensed attorney in the state of Iowa. In his free time, Chris enjoys a wide variety of sporting and outdoor activities, including Ironman triathlons, mountaineering, and golf.