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.
Reside, a three-year-old Web development firm, is moved into a new building in Minneapolis purchased by a company investor.
The two-story building near I-394 and Penn Avenue has 4,000 square feet, space needed by the fast-growing Reside and a second company that its co-owner, Matt Meents, has just purchased.
“Over time, Reside will buy the building from the investor,” Meents says, declining to name a name or a price. “It mitigates the risk for us.” He notes that Reside employees spent their first two years with no office space; everyone worked out of their homes. Its third year was in a low-cost sublease.
“We’re on track to double the revenue again this year,” says Jennifer Zick, vice president of sales and marketing. She says Reside has doubled sales from the year before in each of the last two years. The new space “will give some of our programmers some elbow room.” Reside has seven full-time employees plus two positions to fill.
Meanwhile, Meents completed the purchase of Corporate Interns, which places college interns in corporations in technical fields. He came up with the concept as a junior at the University of St. Thomas entrepreneur class, and did a business plan in his senior year.
Three fellow students actually launched the company while Meents went to work for a corporation for a while and then started Reside. But now they wanted to get out and Meents wants to grow Corporate Interns.
Meents says he and Reside’s co-owner, Eric Scheel, drew up a term sheet with the sellers, then sent it to the lawyers. “It went to them as four pages and came back as 64,” he says. Timing was good for the acquisition, which closed April 28, as college students became available as spring terms ended.
The new company is under Meents’ management and he’ll hire a couple of employees. He’ll turn over day-to-day management of Reside to Scheel and his top managers. “I’ve spent the last few years getting the management team ready for this,” Meents says.
Matt Meents and Jennifer Zick, Reside: 612.767.2000; mm*****@****de.biz; jz***@****de.biz; www.reside.biz; www.corporateinterns.com
