********

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152654/Health-Costs-Gov-Regulations-Curb-Small-Business-Hiring.aspx

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Texas M&A gets a boost from oil & gas

Energy deals dominated merger and acquisition activity in 2011

By Rob Robertson rrobertson@bizpress.net
Reporter

The energy industry dominated a strong 2011 for mergers and acquisitions in Texas, but industry insiders are unwilling to predict a repeat in 2012.

Led by the energy sector, mergers and acquisitions in Texas finished with 335 deals worth $140.3 billion in 2011 – nearly a 50 percent increase by value compared to 2010, according to Mergermarket, an independent M&A intelligence service.

The fourth quarter was particularly impressive. There were 74 deals in the final three months of 2011 totaling $54.4 billion – a 176 percent increase from the same period last year ($19.7 billion), and a 67 percent increase from the third quarter of 2011 ($32.6 billion). Fourth quarter 2011 was also the biggest quarter by value since the fourth quarter of 2009 ($89.4 billion).

The energy sector is driving performance in Texas, both in the volume of deals and in the dollar value. Energy alone accounted for $112.7 billion worth of deals – a massive 80 percent of total values for the state.

Kinder Morgan’s $37 billion purchase of El Paso Corporation and BHP Billiton Limited’s $15 billion purchase of Petrohawk Energy led all transactions in the state.

From Cisco to Singapore
The most significant deals to the Dallas-Fort Worth were Energy Transfer Equity’s $9 billion purchase of Southern Union Company and FTS International (formerly FracTech)’s 70 percent majority sale to a Singapore investment group.

FracTech, which began as a family-operated oilfield services company in Cisco before moving its executive headquarters to Fort Worth, was raising money for an initial public offering when the company attracted the attention of the Singapore sovereign wealth fund – essentially the private equity fund of the nation of Singapore – which decided to buy into the company.

Chad Watt, Mergermarket’s Texas correspondent, said FTS International’s journey was particularly compelling.

“Suddenly this company out of Cisco, Texas – a community that makes Weatherford look like a metropolis – has now just gone international,” he said. “It’s a great story.”

Watt said while the mega-deals may have dominated the headlines, a number of middle market, private company deals have been going on below that that have helped sustain the M&A market here.

Deals involving companies on the low end of the spectrum ($5 million to $500 million) in Texas increased by 129 over 2010. The total value of the deals was lower, but Watt said that’s more a reflection of the new economic reality than anything else.

“The fact that you still have that many deals going on shows that the deal ecosystem in Texas, including North Texas, didn’t die in 2008 when things went south,” he said. “Transaction-to-transaction they may not be getting as much money as their counterparts did in 2007, but it is a sign that those professional services groups survived the downturn and are still quite capable of doing meaningful work here.”

Tough going outside of energy
Still, putting together smaller deals outside of energy has been significantly more challenging over the past 18-24 months, according to Layne Kasper, managing partner of Kasper & Associates in Fort Worth, a mergers and acquisitions firm that serves middle-market companies.

“There are just many more buyers than there are sellers, he said. “A lot of the business owners we see … are waiting for their own performance to improve before they go on the market. Because of that, there aren’t a lot of good companies for sale these days.”

Kasper says it’s an effect of the national recession on many businesses, which saw performance declines in the past three years and subsequently lower valuations. The result is that many sellers are choosing to hold on longer and ride out the downturn in hopes of improving their selling price in the future.

“I think after these companies have gotten a good year or two [of higher performance] under their belt, then they’ll be interested in entering the marketplace,” he said.

It’s even been tough at the top, as the biggest deal in Texas outside of energy was the one deal that did not close in 2011: AT&T’s attempted $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom. That deal ended up falling through in December in the face of regulatory pressure, Watt said.

Looking ahead – sort of
Watt said it’s impossible to predict what 2012 may hold, but the general consensus seems to be that deals volume could pick up through spring but slow down in the summer as the election season ramps up.

“The smart players are the one that are going to be executing their strategy come what may, rather than just waiting on some outside factor to tell them what to do,” he said. “The good investment bankers and lawyers are out there with their clients saying now is the time to hit it.”

This is especially true in oilfield services, where natural gas prices have gotten so cheap, Watt said.

“All the big companies are pulling back their drilling, therefore the service providers down the line are probably going to see a slowdown in their volume of work up ahead,” he said. “If you were going to do something strategic on the sell side, then you probably should have done it already.”

Oil pumps like the one in Stanton, Texas are a common sight all across the horizon in far West Texas. Energy sector deals dominated the M&A activity in Texas in 2011.

Tracy Sabo/CNN

Texas M&A deals by value, 2011

Mergermarket

http://www.timesleader.com/FwBp/news/banking_and_finance/Texas-MA-gets-a-boost-from-oil–gas.html

Peter Sokoloff focuses on different industries than we do at K&A, however, his comments on the high level of buyer interest right now mirror what we’re seeing in manufacturing, distribution and business services.

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Middle Market M&A Outlook: Peter Sokoloff & Co.

Today we continue the conversation we started on Tuesday, asking investment bankers and private equity groups to speculate about the coming year.

Part One of the series was an interview with Darren Snyder and Tony Danielak from Prairie Capital, a middle market private equity group in Chicago. In the second installment in this series, we sat down with Peter Sokoloff, Senior Managing Director at Peter Sokoloff & Co, a middle market investment bank in San Francisco focused on Telecom and Homeland Security, to get his thoughts on the coming year.

Cody: What are your thoughts right now on the general economy and how it will impact mid-sized private businesses?

Peter: Very positive. Most of the traditional leading and lagging indicators are up, pointing to a very good year. Unemployment claims are down, employment is up, inventories are growing, corporate earnings are improving and they’ve been steadily improving since mid-2010. They just kept gradually getting better in 2011 and we expect the same in 2012.

What is your outlook for the private market and the deal business in general?

The outlook is excellent. I have 9 sell side clients in-house and I just closed one. I’ve been in banking for a long time and have found that different strategies work in different economies. When the economy is teetering, we move to the buyside because it’s hard to do sell side representation. In 2009, for example, we had 10 buyside clients and one sell side client. Now we’re almost all sell side and they’re all finding significant buyer interest. The only buyside clients are holdovers from a few years ago. Today we’re seeing great interest in our sellers and real commitment by buyers to get deals done. By contrast, in 2009 most buyers had weak or non-existent M&A mandates.

How will the credit markets affect business this year? Do you think it will impact firms abilities to close?

We really only work with two types of buyers: big corporate buyers and very good PE groups. All of the well-heeled buyers could get capital even in the depths of the recession. The biggest impact has actually been for our clients. It’s much easier for them to get credit to grow their businesses which is making them more attractive as they expand.

An example is one of our clients, a systems integrator who works internationally. A year or two ago they were trying to get capital to cover the 30-60 day gap between when they do the work for their clients and when they get paid, but they found it difficult to find the loans. Now the bank is helping significantly, even covering international accounts receivables which they wouldn’t touch before. The banks aren’t necessarily changing all of the equations they use to determine which loans to give, but they are getting more creative in the types of capital they’re willing to extend to companies.

Are you expecting to do different types of deals in this economy or change the way your firm operates?

Other than the shift from mostly buyside to mostly sell side, we’re really sticking close to our core. We’re 100% M&A. We’ve done other things in the past, but our business is rather unique compared to other Investment Banks. Some firms are regional, they’ll be in San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York and they look for deals near them. We’re very industry specific, not regional. We do deals all around the world and know everyone in our industry. We really only work in two industries: telecom services/software companies and homeland security companies. We email nearly every CEO in the two industries our newsletter each week and mail them monthly. They all know exactly who we are and we usually hear about deals well before anyone else.

Are you anticipating any other changes happening in 2012?

One change that started last year that I think is only going to get stronger this year is the trend for very good private equity groups to start acting a lot more like venture capitalists used to act. I’ve been an investment banker since the early 1980s and until last year I used to avoid private equity groups as a general rule whenever possible because they would sign hundreds of NDAs and waste a lot of our time. Sokoloff is a small group, we don’t have a lot of time to waste, so I would much rather work with industry players who will sign 25 NDAs and buy two companies a year than work with PE groups who will sign 500 NDAs and buy one company.

In 2011 we noted a very interesting change in the top tier of private equity players. I’m really seeing a lot more of the A level type [see side bar] of private equity groups showing up. We’re actually starting to sell companies to private equity more often and they’re starting to act like industry players. Sometimes a PE deal will even end up with a better multiple than we’re getting from industry players. The multiples are closer to public ranges and while the A level groups require significantly more due diligence, the deals always end up better in the end. I admire the A level PEs. Instead of selling outright to a larger company who would likely slow down growth, these type of PE investments keep the entrepreneur engaged, creating jobs and driving our economy in the best American sense.

As an example, last year we had a $25M client that was growing very well and the owner/entrepreneurs decided they wanted to exit the company through a 100% sale. After talking with a few very good PE groups who wanted to keep them engaged as managers, they changed their minds, decided to stay on-board and keep growing the company. Everyone wins – the current owners take some money off the table and are positioned to take a second bite at the apple, the buyers have a strong ROI in the pipeline, and more people get hired, more GDP is created, etc.

SUCCESS MAXIMS

–Part 13–

Fitness Facts

(Dr. Kenneth Cooper; Physician, Author)

1. Fitness is a journey, not a destination.  It must be continued for the rest of your life.

2. You can’t store fitness.  It’s what you did yesterday that counts, not what you did six months ago.

3. The older you are, the longer it takes to get into shape, and the faster you lose it.

4. Remember to warm up before you exercise.  But even more important is to cool down after exercise for at least five minutes.  Sixty-five percent of severe heart attacks occur during recovery, not during exercise.

5. There is nothing known to man that totally protects against coronary artery disease, whether it is medicine, surgery or marathon running.

6. If you are running more than 15 miles a week, you are running for something more than cardiovascular fitness.

7. A good exercise program is the foundation of any good wellness program, but it must be in conjunction with proper weight, proper nutrition and proper supplementation.  That’s called 21st century medicine.

8. A person who is physically fit is less likely to be depressed or a hypochondriac.  He or she has a better self-image, a more positive attitude toward life and fewer somatic (bodily) complaints.

9. I consider the top five aerobics exercises to be cross-country skiing, swimming, jogging or running, cycling and walking.  Among those, just about anyone, regardless of age or gender, can exercise safely and effectively.

10. The first step of any exercise program is to avoid inactivity.  Collectively, 30 minutes of activity most days of the week has been shown to have great health and longevity benefits.

11. Weightlifting and muscle-building exercises must be done in conjunction with, not in place of, a primary aerobic fitness program.

——————————————————————-

Duped by Social Media: 6 Questions You Should Ask when Using LinkedIn

Last week, the SEC accused Anthony Fields’ of marketing fraudulent securities on LinkedIn. This is perhaps the most serious example yet of the conflict between social media and SEC / FINRA regulatory guidelines designed to protect and serve investors of all types. The accusation indicates that Anthony Fields used LinkedIn and other social media networking websites to lure investors by offering more than $500 billion in fake securities. The SEC said Fields provided false and misleading information about clients, assets under management, and even the history of his firm’s business. Fields held himself out as a broker-dealer even though he never properly registered with the SEC, the agency said.

LinkedIn members use unregulated, member-created groups to network with other LinkedIn members with similar interests. Most of these groups are open to all, and none require a background check or other accreditation, critical credentials for safely functioning private financial markets.

These activities happen outside the reach of any active compliance apparatus verifying the quality, identity or validity of the marketed investment opportunities or the individual advertising them. Since these are open and unvetted forums, their use in the context of selling equity or debt securities of any kind falls into unsanctioned ground according to the SEC’s general solicitation regulations.

If you are a deal professional and you wish to use LinkedIn in compliance of federal regulations, you’ll want to hold off on using LinkedIn Groups to solicit interest from investors of any kind.

LinkedIn can still be used to great success in developing relationships with relevant professionals. To do this most efficiently and productively, use the following six questions to help you measure a member’s credibility and level of engagement with LinkedIn:

1. Does the member have a robust network? Make sure you reach out to those LinkedIn members who have relevant connections and a credible work history in the deal business, and who also maintain a fairly complete profile (if it looks like an empty shell, it probably means they don’t use LinkedIn and won’t respond to you).

2. Are you connected to the deal professional by a second or third degree? If so, who are your mutual connections and how well do you know them? Do you trust them? Many LinkedIn members are open networkers who accept any invitation to connect. These are people with too much time on their hands.

3. Are his/her connections accessible? If so, browse their connections and see if they make sense. Many personal networks are made up of connections in a similar industry or role. If the connections seem random, they aren’t likely a committed deal professional and more likely a gold-chaser.

4. Do you share a group? An open group? Open groups are those that anyone can join and usually turn into a cesspool of useless and incoherent dialog.

5. Does the deal professional’s company or employer of record have a company profile on LinkedIn which links to their company website? This is always a good indicator that they’re committed and serious about using modern internet tools to become more successful deal professionals.

6. Does the advisor list his/her deal history on their profile or website? Can you confirm they were in fact participants in any deal they claim to be a part of?

Because online social networks and social media have become more pervasive and frequently used methods of business communication, we wrote another article that reviews steps and notices FINRA has created to provide guidance for deal professionals working in the private markets.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=htc5xpeab&v=001SbPU0nO9dPDvhIounHha8DZmSHnezZeZ7Rug7gT0nLumWV5OpuaAOhA_czeeACBWOVGM5jjKb5IVcmru1h0TwabqM0NbSnSY9ECNwWCeBtT4xGR-vgfxQYNnYYogO-xLQEYZLu7l7_QYWYz_s2BtNtsqFzGVHd0V2RIVTEMa6oCf0IidFvPwum-aIuM0bhIUt_91cWR_sNucNUq3BJhEPDac87ziHTSubjLcFhQ5ohqeSDeGF29Z3iv08Buivp-BuqGp3lniZnuzNVwbWMg9N6NC6udN6M7ea3eQ0TPu2agOUoC-CD6OsQ%3D%3D

SUCCESS MAXIMS

–Part 12–

Life Principles

“Those who are successful in any field are the goal setters.  They have a desire to achieve that is coupled with discipline.” (Larry Burkett)

“Nothing will ever get done if we first have to remove all the obstacles.” (Paul J. Meyer)

“It isn’t work, it’s worry that makes people tired and frustrated.” (J.E. Gulick)

“The greatest composer does not sit down to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.” (Earnest Newman)

“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” (Aristotle)

“Perseverance is based on two components: Effort and Desire.” (Cal Ripken, Jr.)

“If we work our fingers to the bone, pinch and save every penny for a rainy day, who knows, before no time at all we may be the richest person in the cemetery.” (Carl C. Wood)

“Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; only one thing endures — CHARACTER.” (Horace Greeley)

“You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.” (Winston Churchill)

“Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.” (Proverbs 9:9)

Read more: http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/economic_outlook/#ixzz1hqYgtsdO
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A Cowboy’s Christmas Prayer

By S. Omar Barker

I ain’t much good at prayin’,
and You may not know me, Lord –
For I ain’t much seen in churches,
where they preach Thy Holy Word.
But you may have observed me
out here on the lonely plains,
A-lookin’ after cattle,
feelin’ thankful when it rains.

Admirin’ Thy great handiwork.
the miracle of the grass,
Aware of Thy kind Spirit,
in the way it comes to pass
That hired men on horseback
and the livestock that we tend
Can look up at the stars at night,
and know we’ve got a Friend.

So here’s ol’ Christmas comin’ on,
remindin’ us again
Of Him whose coming brought good will
into the hearts of men.
A cowboy ain’t a preacher, Lord,
but if You’ll hear my prayer,
I’ll ask as good as we have got
for all men everywhere.

Don’t let no hearts be bitter, Lord.
Don’t let no child be cold.
Make easy the beds for them that’s sick
and them that’s weak and old.
Let kindness bless the trail we ride,
no matter what we’re after,
And sorter keep us on Your side,
in tears as well as laughter.

I’ve seen ol’ cows a-starvin’ -
and it ain’t no happy sight;
Please don’t leave no one hungry, Lord,
on Thy Good Christmas Night –
No man, no child, no woman,
and no critter on four feet
I’ll do my doggone best
to help you find ‘em chuck to eat.

I’m just a sinful cowpoke, Lord –
ain’t got no business prayin’
But still I hope you’ll ketch a word
or two, of what I’m sayin’:
We speak of Merry Christmas, Lord–
I reckon You’ll agree –

There ain’t no Merry Christmas
for nobody that ain’t free!
So one thing more I ask You,
Lord: just help us what You can
To save some seeds of freedom
for the future Sons of Man!

http://www.cowboypoetry.com/xma2002five.htm

8 Tools Your Business Must Use to Leverage Social Media

By now, you already know that social media is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to market and advertise your business. There are a number of tools on the market that are designed to help you take advantage of social media in a way that makes you more effective and saves time.

The goal of these tools is to help you integrate social media into your daily business practices, and while you may be familiar with some tools like Google Docs and Radian 6, these are eight tools your business may not be aware of.

Hootsuite is a little like a digital dashboard for all of your social media needs. Designed to work with major platforms including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and FourSquare, the tool allows you to quickly manage updates to as many platforms as you need. Already a favorite among big business and even political campaigns, Hootsuite makes it easy to manage a number of microblogging sites and social media tools from a single, easy to use dashboard.

Dropbox is a super smart tool for businesses that lets you store files on the Dropbox site and then access them from anywhere. It’s a little like a fileserver that doesn’t require an actual server. The tool also offers a version for iPhone, making it easy for you and your employees to share information quickly. You can then use this information to update your social media sites in real time from anywhere you take your cell phone.

Screenr is a tool that allows you to quickly and easily create screencasts, or videos that capture your computer screen and an audio recording to show users how to work a new feature on your site. This tool makes it fast and easy to create videos that can explain to users in a few minutes what would otherwise take hours to explain, and you can add your screencasts to your social media pages, creating engaging content that keeps visitors interested.

Monitter is an online reputation management tool that instantly shows you what people are saying about your business online. The tool allows you to search for any mention of your business online with just a quick entry. You can also look for your own name, product names, or anything else you want to stay up to date on. This tool can help you reach out to potential users and manage any mentions that you get online.

Mail Chimp is a great way to test the waters for email marketing. The tool provides a way for you to manage email lists, analyze and track emails, and create custom HTML email templates. The tool is free for up to 500 users and will send out as many as 3000 emails per month. If you want to try email marketing, this is an ideal way to try without spending a fortune.

iGoogle is ideal for anyone who regularly uses tools such as gmail or the Google search engine. Create an iGoogle page, set it as your home page, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds which let you know whenever someone blogs or tweets about you, products or services you offer, or your industry in general.

Technorati is a tool that lets you search across different blogs to find out what people are writing about. Leverage the tool to find out what people are saying about your product or service, problems that people see with your competitor, or issues within your target market. It’s a way of using social media to collect information about what your customers need.

Hubspot is a tool that lets businesses take advantage of a suite of social media tools including auto-publishing, social media monitoring, and social media analysis. The tool offers business people a way to handle a number of the trickier parts of handling their social media presence from a single easy to use application.

http://successfulbusinessnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=855&view=article