Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
The founder of the Milestone Growth Fund, Esperanza Guerrero-Anderson, ended up staying several months longer than planned. Scheduled to be done in June, she stayed through September and worked with the board on a five-year plan.
Changes are ahead for the fund, a not-for-profit that invests in minority-owned companies. It was incorporated in 1986.
“We definitely have plans to grow. The next president will have the opportunity to raise a for-profit fund,” she says — $15 million to $25 million, from big corporations who would be sensitive to the mission of funding minority-owned companies. Candidates for president were being interviewed in August, with the hopes of someone starting by winter.
She calls Milestone’s work important, and “small potatoes.”
“It doesn’t pay to do the smaller deals. We can do it because we are nonprofit, so we get pro bono legal advice, and we get executives to sit on our advisory board,” she says. “We will continue with our same mission, of small investments with minority companies.”
She plans to be a freelance business consultant. “The challenge for me is how to make sure that the entrepreneurs I select are serious about growth,” she says.
It’s difficult to leave Milestone. “It is my baby,” she says. “When I started talking about leaving, it was very painful. I got sick physically,” she says. “Now that I’m over the pain I’m really excited."
Esperanza Guerrero-Anderson: es***************@*****st.net. Milestone Growth Fund: 612.338.0090; www.milestonegrowth.com
