Intermediary coverage is one of two retained deal origination services TruSight offers private equity clients. Where the retained buy-side team reaches out directly to companies that may not even be thinking about selling, intermediary coverage works a different angle: relationships with the advisors already representing sellers.
We sat down with Joe, a member of our intermediary coverage team, to walk through how that process actually works, from the first conversation with a client to the eventual introduction.
Every private equity firm has a different investment thesis, and that shapes everything we do downstream. Some firms are industry agnostic. Others want one specific sector, geography, or deal size. Some are chasing platform investments, others already own a company in a space and want add-ons to it.
For example, say we work with a client who is a private equity firm that's hyper-focused on niche manufacturing, and they only want companies based in the Southwest. Once we understand criteria that specific, we can narrow our advisor network down to the people who actually fit. That's the starting point for everything else.
We've got over 12,000 intermediary contacts, but the number itself isn't really what matters. It's the relationships behind it.
Our team is in regular contact with the investment bankers and advisors in that network. We're asking what they're representing, what's coming to market, what kind of buyer they're looking for. At the same time, we're telling them what our clients want. It runs in both directions: here's what our client is looking for, and what are you seeing that might fit?
For that Southwest manufacturing client, that might mean taking our full network and narrowing it down to advisors who specialize in manufacturing, or who've represented deals of the right size, or who have Southwest experience specifically. We start broad, then narrow once we understand exactly what the client needs.
Deal size, from an EBITDA standpoint, is typically $3 to $4 million. On sectors, business services and healthcare are where we're most active right now. Business services covers a lot of ground: HVAC, contracting, and one recent one was a company doing broadband installation, basically the contracting arm for a telecom trying to build out service in a new area.
This is the biggest difference: unlike other deal sourcing platforms, we're not looking for deals that are already broadly marketed. When a banker posts a teaser there, anyone with access can see it.
We connect our clients with sell-side advisors. That's intermediary coverage. Concurrently, our retained buy-side team can be knocking on your door asking if you'd sell, even if you never put it on the market.
While we can't offer exclusivity with these bank led deals, our retained buy-side pracitce is different, since that team is approaching companies directly, so exclusivity is possible there.
Because deals sourced through our intermediary network are at various stages, we confirm each deal's status with the relevant advisor.
Once the advisor confirms the deal status and gives approval, we formally introduce our client to the advisor, who then outlines the next steps in their process. From introduction to close, I'd say six to twelve months on average, depending on how the deal process goes. If a deal isn't the right fit for our client, the search doesn't end there. Our team continues sourcing opportunities that match their investment thesis.
Not exactly. Clients can access deal flow immediately opon subscribing to any of our offerings. We're also excited to have just launched a more interactive investment portal that'll let clients filter deals in real time and set up alerts, so if a healthcare deal comes in with $10 million in revenue, they'll get notified right away.
But volume still comes down to how specific a client's criteria are. Across the board, we're sourcing about 50 to 80 deals a month. A client who's open to healthcare, tech, and business services is naturally going to see more of that than a client like a region specific manufacturing firm, whose criteria rule out most of it by design. Fewer relevant deals isn't a bad thing. That's just the tradeoff for being specific.
Working both sides of the table gives us a specific kind of visibility. On the buyer side, one theme comes up constantly: clients want profitable companies with recurring revenue. On the advisor side, I see which deals tend to stall or fall through, and why.
One pattern I've noticed: deals with heavily project-based revenue, or a lot of construction exposure, tend to be harder to place. Private equity buyers are often wary of that kind of variability, even when the underlying business is solid.
Ultimately, intermediary coverage comes down to relationships, targeting, and matching.
The intermediary network gives us reach. Our ongoing conversations with advisors give us insight into the opportunities behind that network. And understanding each client's investment thesis allows us to determine where there is a genuine fit.
If you're a private equity investor looking for more consistent, relevant deal flow without relying entirely on broadly marketed processes, reach out to Joe and the TruSight team to talk through what fits your criteria.
TruSight is a premier M&A deal sourcing firm that connects private equity funds, family offices, and strategic acquirers with high-quality, proprietary investment opportunities. Through a disciplined, research-driven approach, TruSight helps clients identify and act on off-market deals that others never see.
If your firm wants first-call access rather than another mailing list, TruSight’s Retained Buy-Side Search builds targeted, off-market coverage tailored to your criteria, with senior-led outreach directly to owners in the sectors you care about. Connect with us to discuss how a dedicated search can put your firm at the front of the line.