Cassel Salpeter & Co. Represents Austin-based Software Company, Trucker Path, Inc. in its Sale to Renren, Inc.

Cassel Salpeter & Co. served as exclusive financial advisor to Austin-based Trucker Path, Inc., a leading software platform for the trucking industry, on its sale to Renren, Inc. (NYSE: RENN). This deal represented Cassel Salpeter’s third technology transaction in 2017.

Trucker Path’s core product is the Trucker Path app, a trip planning companion for truck drivers, enabling a large driver community to assist each other in updating the real-time status of relevant points-of-interest on their route. It helps truckers find truck stops, available parking spots, rest areas, scales, open DOT weigh stations, truck washes and more. Expanding on the success of the Trucker Path app, Trucker Path also introduced the Truckloads app, a mobile marketplace providing freight load matching with over 3 million loads posted monthly. Currently, Trucker Path has more than 600,000 monthly active users, which represent more than 33% of all U.S. long haul truck drivers, and maintains steady organic growth. For Renren’s global business, the acquisition of Trucker Path means an entry into the transportation sector.

“We appreciated Cassel Salpeter’s timely and thorough marketing to the right potential acquirers for Trucker Path” said Ivan Tsybaev, Founder and CEO, Trucker Path. “Cassel Salpeter guided us through a competitive process and clearly articulated the acquisition alternatives to management and the Board of Directors. Cassel Salpeter continued to actively guide us through due diligence and closing.”

About Cassel Salpeter & Co.

Cassel Salpeter & Co., LLC is an independent investment banking firm that provides advice to middle market and emerging growth companies in the U.S. and worldwide. Together, the firm’s professionals have experience providing private and public companies with a broad spectrum of investment banking and financial advisory services, including: mergers and acquisitions; equity and debt capital raises; fairness and solvency opinions; valuations; and restructurings, such as 363 sales and plans of reorganization. Co-founded by James Cassel and Scott Salpeter, the firm provides objective, unbiased, results-focused services that clients need to achieve their goals. Personally involved at every stage of all engagements, the firm’s senior professionals have forged relationships and completed hundreds of transactions and assignments nationwide. The firm’s headquarters are in Miami. Member FINRA and SIPC. More information is available at www.CasselSalpeter.com.

Cassel Salpeter & Co. Represents Norquay Technology in its Sale to MPD Chemicals

Cassel Salpeter & Co., a middle-market investment banking firm providing financial advisory services, represented Norquay Technology, Inc. (“Norquay”) in its sale to MPD Chemicals (“MPD”), a portfolio company of Addison Capital Partners.  The acquisition will enable MPD to broaden its specialty chemical manufacturing capabilities.

The Cassel Salpeter team, led by President and Co-Founder Scott Salpeter and Director Philip Cassel, supported Norquay through the closing of the transaction.

Norquay is a specialty chemical manufacturer with over 30 years of expertise in providing the scale-up and production of advanced proprietary custom materials, including organometallic, inorganic and organic molecules. Norquay’s product line includes chromic, electronic, catalyst, ligand, medical adhesive and UV performance products, with a customer base that ranges from startups to large multi-national corporations.

Robert Heldt, Norquay’s founder and former CEO and now division Founder and President said, “The Cassel Salpeter team guided me through the sales process from start to finish.  They helped me understand my options and ensured this complex transaction resulted in the ideal outcome for me and the Company.  I couldn’t have asked for more from their team and the support they provided was invaluable.”

“It was a pleasure working with the Norquay team to find the best fit to continue their current growth trajectory. We believe Norquay will be accretive to the MPD Chemicals family of companies, and the partnership will provide great opportunities for both groups,” said President and Co-Founder Scott Salpeter of Cassel Salpeter & Co.

Debra Gruenstein, Michael Weiner, Michael Bookbinder, and Anne Hoover with Fox Rothschild LLP provided legal representation to Norquay.  Donald “Rocky” Thompson, Andrew Rosenthal, and Sarah Klee with Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson, P.A. provided legal representation to MPD.

About Cassel Salpeter & Co.

Cassel Salpeter & Co., LLC is an independent investment banking firm that provides advice to middle market and emerging growth companies in the U.S. and worldwide. Together, the firm’s professionals have experience providing private and public companies with a broad spectrum of investment banking and financial advisory services, including: mergers and acquisitions; equity and debt capital raises; fairness and solvency opinions; valuations; and restructurings, such as 363 sales and plans of reorganization. Co-founded by James Cassel and Scott Salpeter, the firm provides objective, unbiased, results-focused services that clients need to achieve their goals. Personally involved at every stage of all engagements, the firm’s senior professionals have forged relationships and completed hundreds of transactions and assignments nationwide. The firm’s headquarters are in Miami. Member FINRA and SIPC. More information is available at www.CasselSalpeter.com.

About Norquay

Founded in 1987, Norquay’s focus is developing a product line and custom synthesis for custom proprietary products.  The Company’s niche is the demanding low volume commercialization of specific molecules for high performance applications.  Norquay brings scale-up and process optimization to reduce costs and cycle times while understanding the chemical synthesis.

About MPD Chemicals

MPD Chemicals is a US-based manufacturer of specialty chemicals with expertise in multiple technical areas including complex organic synthesis, unique monomers, polymer development, organosilicon chemistries and stable isotope labeling. The individual business units that comprise MPD are Monomer-Polymer and Dajac Labs, Silar and IsoSciences. The recent combination of these entities into a single organization allows for further development of novel materials and solutions for client application needs by leveraging the company’s cross-disciplinary expertise and operational strength when internally scaling from milligram to metric ton batches. For more information please go to www.mpdchemicals.com.

About Addison Capital Partners

Addison Capital Partners is a private equity investment firm that seeks out partnerships with owners and operators of lower middle market growth companies to provide liquidity, growth capital and management resources to grow and build exceptional enterprises.

Prepare now for impacts of new tax bill on middle-market businesses

By James S. Cassel

While many hope the new tax bill will stimulate the economy and bring faster GDP growth, we must consider whether it will indeed benefit us to speed growth from where we are today, or to experience a longer period of extended slower growth. Will the stimulus cause the economy to overheat and therefore bring us closer to the next recession? Are we better off as the tortoise or the hare? Fact is, middle-market business owners would be wise to prepare for both scenarios.

Since we are not currently in a recession and we have had steady, slow growth for almost 10 years, it is not clear that we need the stimulus this bill is supposed to bring. If we overheat, the Federal Reserve will likely pull back by raising interest rates faster to slow the economy. Rapid growth could cause inflation, because of a shortage of labor in today’s already tight employment market, among other things. Would that mean the Fed needs to raise rates faster (many already predict three quarter point interest hikes in 2018) and push us closer to the next recession, or are we better off with slow, sustained growth? Slow, sustained growth over the long term may be more beneficial to individuals and middle-market businesses.

Based on our experience working with middle-market business owners in all types of economic cycles, here is some general guidance to help your business decisions this year:

Hiring. You should be very cautious and not be overly exuberant when hiring because adding too many full-time employees too fast could put you at risk of having to fire those people just as fast when things slow down or your projections are not met. In the last recession, employers who hired in 2006 had to fire fast in 2008. Those who didn’t react quickly enough may not have survived. The key is to remain quick and nimble, and always hire people for the right reasons at the right times. You may want to start by hiring temporary help or part-time employees with the idea of converting them to full-time if growth continues.

Capital expenditures and real estate. When it comes to your capital expenditures, you must be careful to not overexpand. With real estate, you must be flexible. Consider solutions like WeWork or Regus shared office spaces to avoid long-term real estate commitments, which have proved to destroy many companies. Beginning in late 2000, large real estate commitments doomed companies when the internet bubble burst.

Expenses. You must continuously monitor your expenses and evaluate your medium- and long-term commitments to ensure you have flexibility. You want to continue to keep a strong balance sheet, being cautious with your commitments for borrowing. Particularly during the next year or two with the continuation of the growth of 2017, there is an expectation that interest rates will continue to rise, increasing borrowing costs.

Taxes. While some will get an increase in their taxes, the bulk of the tax relief will go to the wealthiest individuals and businesses, and thus will, in all likelihood, be saved rather than spent. In the case of companies, it will probably be used for dividends or stock buybacks, with limited increases to employee compensation where required to retain talent. Some of the benefits from this tax cut could be very short-lived, and as the bill exists today, individual tax benefits are not permanent.

It will be interesting to see what happens to economic growth with the new tax law over an extended time, because depending on which economist you listen to, forecasts vary from short-term blips in growth to long-term, extended growth. Some of the benefit will be offset by the misguided immigration policy which, as we deport workers, reduces the pool of potential employees. At the same time, in today’s economy that is near full employment, our immigration policy also reduces the pool of consumers who are spending money and in many cases paying taxes, decreasing GDP growth.

Without a doubt, exercising caution and preparing for both outcomes can help protect your best interest in any of these scenarios.

 

James Cassel is co-founder and chairman of Cassel Salpeter & Co., LLC, an investment-banking firm with headquarters in Miami that works with middle- market companies. He may be reached via email at jcassel@casselsalpeter.com or via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesscassel.

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