Curriculum

February 28 2023:  Private Equity:  Raising Capital and Managing the Business
Lecturer:  Joshua Cherry-Seto | Partner, CFO | StartUp Health

How is private equity capital raised today? This class explores primary markets (blind pool, lock up structure) and performance compensation for managers. Other alternative platforms such as the fundless sponsor model and pledge funds. The increasingly popular co-investment and secondary markets, both GP & LP led will also be explained.

We will also detail the current fundraising market and how those have changed over time especially from LP/investor perspective.

March 7, 2023:  Private Equity 101 & Creativity in the Origination Process
Lecturer:  Kathleen Lauster | Senior Managing Director | Ankura Capital Advisors, LLC

This session will help place a context for the rest of the course.  We’ll discuss what private equity truly is, its approximate size, the participants, and what drives successful outcomes.  We will demonstrate how to exercise creativity in the origination process.   Participants will learn how to best build the relationships necessary to source deals, profile targets, and evaluate opportunities in the context of macro-economic and micro-economic trends and to capitalize on marketing opportunities.  In addition, the role of management skills, operations and human resources will be discussed in the context of origination.  This session will also discuss how to ensure that the right pre-diligence steps are taken in advance of a formal review of the investment opportunity by an investment committee or business owners.

March 14, 2023: Leveraged Buyout Modeling & Analysis
Instructor:  Professor Zirpolo

Financial Statement Analysis:  Assist the participant with understanding the concepts behind all the balance sheet and income statement accounts and how they interrelate and tie into the cashflow statement.  Including but not limited to the Matching Principle, Historical Cost, Going concern, Comparability,  Assets = Liabilities + Equity, Revenue, Cost   of Sales, SG&A and EBITDA.

March 21, 2023: Break
 

March 28, 2023: Financial Due Diligence
Lecturer:  Nabeel Alam | Director, Deals Advisory | PwC                              

Understand the analysis behind an acquisition or divestiture including the analysis of the quality of earnings (Adjusted EBITDA), quality of working capital (setting the WC Peg), debt and debt like items and tax issues.  Understand how these items are taken into consideration when negotiating purchase price and the asset/stock purchase agreement. 

April 4, 2023: Financing
Lecturer: Omar Stevens | Principal |  Mizzen Capital & Jason Park | Investment Lead | Alignment Credit                     

In this class, participants will be exposed to the world of middle marketing lending and financing.  We will discuss the different types of financing such as senior, 'uni-tranche', and mezzanine.  The mechanics of acquisition leverage will be presented, as will the institutions that provide different types of debt.  Means to determine optimal leverage levels will be reviewed, namely how maximizing equity returns must be tempered by the challenges of supporting leverage in terms of covenant requirements and cash flow to cover both debt interest and principal.

April 25, 2023: The M&A Process, Management & Exits

Lecturer: Jason Schoenholtz |  Managing Director | Lazard

In this class, we will illustrate how the M&A sale process works. The lecturer will present how a company is sold with a detailed description of the steps involved with the sale process and how best to manage this process from the perspective of a leading middle market investment banker. As well as discuss various alternatives for optimal exit strategies for an investment in a company. A discussion of IPOs, identification of strategic acquirers and equity sponsors will be provided.