Podcast: M&A Deals During a Rising Rate Environment

Mike Langford:

Hi there, it's Mike Langford. Welcome to the Advisor Financing Forum, a podcast presented by SkyView Partners. This week on the show, Aaron Hasler and I are joined by Nick Barker, the Chief Banking Officer at SkyView to get a sense of how recent rate increases by the Fed are affecting the M&A market for financial advisory businesses. And, more importantly, where do Nick and Aaron see the market headed? Should we expect more rate increases or are rates likely to come back down in 2023? And how should financial advisors approach buying or selling a business in this new higher-rate environment?

If you've got questions about how rates will impact your ability to buy or sell, this is the episode for you. Now before we get started, as always, if you have questions about your specific M&A plans, please feel free to swing by SkyView.com or call 866 567 6282 and the SkyView team will be happy to walk through all the options that are best for you and your business. Okay, let's get to our conversation with Nick Barker. Well, Nick Barker, so nice to meet you. Aaron Hasler, so nice to see you again. Let's get it on with the Advisor Financing Forum. Welcome to the show, gents.

Aaron Hasler:

Thanks, Mike. Great to be here.

Nick Barker:

Thanks for having me.

Mike Langford:

Fantastic. So I'm wearing green, not Celtics green, but I wore this green on purpose just because before we clicked record, Aaron was busting my chops a little bit about how nervous I am about the upcoming Celtics season. So I tell you what, we're recording this, training camp is starting, we'll just see how our respective teams do by the end of the year. Maybe we'll have a little gentleman's wager.

Aaron Hasler:

We have an office mate that is very confident about his Timberwolves team this year. So we are going to have a fun basketball season.

Mike Langford:

I love your team, so this will be a fun... Maybe throughout the season, we'll have some cheap shots back and forth on the pod.

Aaron Hasler:

We need a little ongoing bet. We'll figure something out.

Mike Langford:

Exactly.

Nick Barker:

I like your odds.

Mike Langford:

You like your odds. All right, Very good. Very good. Awesome. So Nick, you're in on the action here. We'll have a little gentleman's stuff going on the side. All right. So listen, people don't tune into this show to hear us banter about our favorite sports teams. They want to hear about stuff related to their business. So one of the big things that I think is on a lot of advisors' minds now is that the Fed just raised rates by 75 basis points in their continued effort to fight inflation. And so I'm sure many people are wondering, where do we go from here? What's happening here? So let's get to it. First, let's start with a timeline here. What are the important dates for advisors to keep in mind for the rest of 2022?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, I think the most important dates that they could be thinking about, definitely going to be the November 2nd, next meeting coming up from the Fed. They're expecting, could be 50, could be 75 base point increases coming up. And then the second meeting is on December 14th. So back to back meetings here. Usually, they try to space them out a little bit more, but that's where it's at. So I guess we'll see really where they end up going.

Mike Langford:

That's incredibly aggressive. I can't think, off the top of my head, of another time in history in which we've seen such aggressive and clustered increases in rates in order to basically take control over some things happening in the economy. Do you recall any of those Nick?

Nick Barker:

I don't think it's ever been this aggressive in history, actually. The word on the street is 75 is the new 25, and they're really just trying to climb them as fast as they can to get on top of this thing.

Mike Langford:

Crazy.

Aaron Hasler:

And Nick, just for a refresher, where are we at year to date? What's been our total increase so far?

Nick Barker:

I'd have to go back and look. I know, I'll say is it two and a quarter?

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah, sounds about right.

Nick Barker:

I definitely could check, but that's a good question.

Mike Langford:

And so you mentioned there's two others so the 2nd of November and the 14th of December if I recall correctly, are some dates to keep in mind. Are we expecting a forecast of... I feel like you're the meteorologist of rate. Are we expecting some future rate hikes, or some more rate hikes? You just mentioned potentially 75 or 50 basis points. Is that something that really is baked into the street, if you will, of everybody's like, hey, yeah, we know more is coming.

Nick Barker:

Yeah, exactly. The original rate hike for this meeting that just occurred was 75 basis points. So it came in at target. Prior to that meeting, it was all pegged for 50 basis points in November. I think the next key meeting is actually September 30th is when we'll hear the last month measurements for CPI, PCE, all the basic measurements that the Fed are using to see if inflation is meeting target. And then from there they'll really decide if it ends up coming in at or below or above their expectations. And with that, where they end up taking the rate. General guidance through those committee members is that it's definitely going to go up to the tune of at least maybe another full point, if not further through those next two meetings.

Mike Langford:

Wow. As somebody who has lived through several financial crises, if you will, as an adult, I remember the banking loans scandal just when I was in college. And then you get to see the .com bubble burst, the 08 and 06 crisis, you see all this type of stuff, and then you see something aggressive like this. It is mind boggling to see how fast it's moving. But I guess anyway, it makes sense. Right?

Aaron Hasler:

It's especially crazy though when you think about just having gone through this COVID experience where it felt like rates just raced to the bottom. So it does feel like we're on an absolute yo-yo roller coaster we've never been before.

Nick Barker:

And I think one of the great things to think about is Powell was saying last year that inflation was transitory and it wasn't a big deal. We shouldn't have to worry about it. And I think that's why such an aggressive increase from what we've historically seen is we're sort of playing catch a little bit. No one has a crystal ball including Powell. So hard to say where things are going to go, but they're really doing the best that they can with the information that they get.

Mike Langford:

One question I might imagine that's on the minds of most advisors because they translate this type of stuff for their clients. So I'm sure every single meeting that advisor's having with the clients, they're talking about, okay, rates are going up, here's what this means for you. If you're thinking about buying a house or whatever, here's what this might mean in your portfolio when we see a rising rate environment. So they're pretty good about that. But as we've talked a lot about on this show, many advisors have never gone through financing for their business. So they're not particularly astute when it comes to commercial lending and how this type of thing impacts a business loan. So how does what we're seeing so far translate to the rates that banks are offering to advisors?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, I think it's safe to say the rates are definitely going up. The reason being their cost of capital is also going up. So it's getting more expensive for the banks to lend out these funds. So thus they have to eat some of that and they pass some of that along as well to their clients. So what the rates end up looking like, a huge range really. It's a risk adjusted approach, depends on how strong the transaction is, what the financing package looks like. But really what we're seeing right now is something in the sixes, so close to prime, but again, depending on the strength of everything that's going on in the transaction.

Mike Langford:

So it's crazy to think about, but we are about to start Q4 of 2022. It starts at a few days. We just mentioned at the beginning of say NBA training camp starts or NBA seasons coming here. You can tell how I set my watch.

Aaron Hasler:

And [inaudible 00:08:33]with the hockey season. Hockey seasons starting here as we-

Mike Langford:

There you go. Hockey seasons coming too. Exactly right. So all of our favorite sports are coming back. So as you think about 2023, what are the expectations that you have baked into your assumptions for the next year? Do you see rates coming back down next year or are you thinking that we might be in a continuing upward environment?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, I think as of the last meeting, they pull all that data from all those committee members and what they're seeing is flight increases up to that more. So four and a half, 5% peg, which is actually 2% more than what it's at today. So scary when we're talking about from today where it's going to go but then really hovering and then over the next two years coming back down, it's all managing inflation. So with that being said, they could say it's going to be that high the next meeting, all the measurements come in great. They don't have to take as drastic of measures. It's just what they're seeing at every meeting.

Aaron Hasler:

Nick, added to that, we were talking about this a little bit this morning and this is my favorite question to ask right now as we're talking to clients is what's their forecast of the market? Where do they think the markets are going to be going and what's their reaction to the Fed? But if they do go and do their intended rate hikes, what are the measurements they would be looking for over the long range here, like you said, over that next few years, to start to walk rates back? Are they looking at the unemployment rate rising? Are we looking at inflation just dropping below a certain amount?What ar e the trigger points that we think that cause them to start to think about rates going back down?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, the big thing they're looking at is the PCE, it's the personal consumption expenditure they carve out. It's really the base version of that. So they carve out food and they carve out energy costs, but they're really looking at how much it costs per person to live, for lack of a better definition off the top of my head. So really they take that in consideration. They take unemployment rates, which they're targeting right now as well and as a combined effort look to see where they need to move rates to hit all those other metrics. Because that's the real goal that they're trying to do is again, capture that insulation being lower.

Mike Langford:

Now there's a word that everybody hates floating around in the ether over these last few months is that many economists are coming out and predicting recession. That we're either already in one in the early stages of it. And there's some debate about when does a recession technically start from amongst some of those circles. However, a lot of people are worried. Do you see that as a major driver for what will happen in rates next year or is that something where it's like it doesn't have a big impact?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, I think almost exactly to Aaron's point. As people start to spend less than the recession worries loom. I think they definitely could yank all those rate increases back. That's the tough part with the Fed is they're trying to do a soft landing, meaning that you're not going up 75, 75, 75 and then you overshot it and then you have to heavily correct back the other way. And that's where a lot of economists are pushing back that it's moving too much too quickly and that they should start tapering back down. But they're not seeing the data that they need to see in order to do that yet. But that's always in their mind. They don't necessarily want a recession to happen, but a lot of them have come out and said that that's fine because their number one goal is to make sure that they have current inflation under control.

Mike Langford:

Yeah. It's interesting. I think back to my days in business school and studying investments and one of the things that my investments professor says is markets like certainty, they hate uncertainty of not knowing variables. And so to your point, Nick, whether you're a financial advisor trying to run your business or you're a major corporation trying to figure out what's my hiring plan for next year or how much supply should I order or whatever. You don't want to have too many variables in there. If I have no idea if we're in a rising rate environment or if it's going to be one of those that goes up, it's going to be down, up, that doesn't feel good. I want some level of consistency in there to plan my business.

Nick Barker:

And that's the struggle. Everybody's got all the variables right now, but it leads into... That's the nice thing about working with SkyView. We have a lot of different banks and we also have a lot of different funding solutions for that. So if one of our clients wants a long term fixed rate, that's an option right now if they think rates are going to go up and then spike back down. We're also doing variable rates right now, so there's a lot of different flexibility and I think that flexibility is definitely the most important thing to have right now.

Mike Langford:

Smart, smart. So let's get into probably right in your wheelhouse here Aaron. Many of the advisors who watch and listen to the show are interested in acquiring another business obviously, right? They're thinking about either buying a business or selling a business. I think in this specific case, I think many of them are probably thinking about buying a business yet when rates go up it may cause some to get a bit nervous obviously, or maybe even cause some of them to table their acquisition pursuits until again maybe they have some more certainty or maybe rates come down. Why is acquiring a business still a good deal even in the face of a higher rate environment?

Aaron Hasler:

Well that's a good question. I'll say this. I think the first thing is anytime you have a willing seller sitting across the table from you, you have to be in deep discussions with that person because it is just so challenging still in today's market to get sellers to the table. That being said, it is interesting and obviously it's been a very interesting last, I don't know, two, three months and really even two, three weeks as we on the investment banking side are getting some deal structures finalized because you're as much looking at rates, but you're really looking at, for a lot of these advisors, the acquisition strategy really has to do more with where's the market going? So what's the revenue of the firm going to look like? And so that's why I've said what me worry to some extent on the rates. Rates are going to ebb and flow.

As Nick talked about, you have some options on the financing side to say, okay, I'm bearish on the Fed and I think that they're going to have to walk some of this back next year. So I'm going to take the variable rate option, but where are we at with market and what are we going to do when we've been in a market correction here for what, eight, nine months? And so the question is, where is revenue of these underlying businesses going to go? And what's fascinating to see as we work with clients, some of these clients we've engaged with at the beginning of the year, so after a cycle of taking them through the entire process of investment banking and marketing their practice and introducing buyers, what we're seeing is their revenue isn't off that much. And so if the market is down, I don't know, let's say it's 20% for easy math today, what we're seeing is that a lot of our clients, their revenue may only be down two to 5%.

And some of that has to do with diversification of the assets, the underlying assets. I do think a lot of advisors started moving into cash in the beginning of the year, if not late last year. But then what we see is the natural evolution of these practices is that clients still keep coming in the door. We have not seen a big pullback in jobs and so people continue to remain employed. There was a survey here in Minnesota based on our newspaper saying that 46% or something like that of people weren't even affected by the current inflation, that it was a minor inconvenience to them, which does show that there are a lot of people that still live with two incomes and live well below their means or have plenty of income in capacity to spare. And these people are coming back with more money. I think you continue to see in our environment and the maturation of the wealth management industry that new clients are coming into the fold as we grow and as we transition from baby boomer wealth into the next generations.

I think now I've forgotten, I'm Gen X and then all these guys, Y and Z, and there are more products available. So Gen Y and Gen Z are, I think, more financially aware than you and I were Mike at that age. And so it's interesting. So I think it's fun to watch because even though the market, this has been a comfortable slide to manage, at least from an investment banking perspective, because there haven't been hard dips in dives or there hasn't been huge volatility. And at the end of the day what we're seeing is that firms continue to grow. They continue to maintain their clients. The person I spoke with earlier today just before this call was finding that this was their time to really pick up a lot of new client relationships. Is that flight of safety that we've talked about for years at SkyView, which is the idea that during times of uncertainty people lean on professional advice and they come back to that.

And so I of course continue to remain bullish on the acquisition game from the standpoint that I think we're going to see that the market will start to come back as we go into 23, which certainly helps revenue, but we also find is that there's just a continual need for advice out there and it's really about setting up your firm for a capacity to add new clients and to market it. And so some of that may be that we need more organic growth within our practices in addition to that in organic acquisition growth. But yeah, it continues to be a very good market for M&A.

Mike Langford:

It's really interesting, you hit on growth a few different times there and I imagine Nick, this is something, the calculations that go on your team and in your brain is like, hey listen, are we lending money at a lower rate than the expected growth of this business that is going to be using the funds to acquire the new business? It's like the combined entity. Will it grow faster than the rates we're given as the money app? And I imagine that's a fairly easy assumption to say yes under normal circumstances, even with higher rates. But right now, if you were buying a business right now, you might be buying lower than you expected because the markets have been down. So that means AUM as a general rule is pulled back a little bit and most of the growth in financial advisory businesses comes from the AUM and is market driven.

So if the markets are down, it might be a good time to buy and then know that you're locking in growth because when the markets come back up, let's just say the markets are up 15% next year, that's free money from the markets. Do you think about it that way, Nick, when you guys are making these lending decisions? Is that how you build that type of stuff into your model?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, I don't know if it's necessarily built into the model so much as we do third party valuations, so individuals that have been licensed to create a value amount based on all of these different firms and based on their different business models, their business lines, things like that. And one of the interesting things is we're really not seeing a pullback in any of the multiples in these valuations. So it's actually contradicting to what you'd think is actually it's a really good time to sell as well because while you do have AUM pullback, they go back, they look at your historical performance, they're looking at all these different aspects. So it's a small piece of a bigger pie if you will. And everything else is held pretty stable as a part of that outside of obviously the pullback from this year.

Mike Langford:

Pretty fascinating. All right. So I don't know, I could be off apparently.

Aaron Hasler:

No, I think that what's interesting Mike, is to add to what Nick's talking about is at the end of the day when we're looking at cashflow lending and lending to these businesses that don't have that hard collateral, you have to look at the downside protection. And so downside protection is the priority. And at the end of the day, what we want to see is that the two firms have the ability to ride the market continually down. But since we've seen our downturn already, I do feel that there's outside of something really catastrophic that's not a part of the markets but affects the markets. The idea is at this point, I think for a lot of these borrowers, it's about revenue growth from here on out.

And some of that is you have that ability to counteract market downside with just increasing your customer base or your client base. And that's a unique element that certainly some industries have. But I think this one at our low cost of acquisition per individual client, a firm can go out and market and bring on new clients and consumers without a significant hard capital cost other than just employee infrastructure.

Nick Barker:

And [inaudible 00:22:38] can be right, it's a great time to buy as well from basically what you were alluding to in the sense that there's a lot of cross selling opportunities that the clients are reaching out to the advisors right now at an unprecedented rate because when the market's going gangbusters, they don't want to talk to their advisor. They're like, oh yeah, it's going great. But when people are looking at their accounts going down, they definitely want to have more conversations and it's just more opportunities for those buyers to then roll in all these other products and services that their clients may want. So it's oddly enough good for both parties as contradicting as that might be.

Mike Langford:

All right, that up makes total sense to me. If I was thinking of acquiring a business thinking, hey, when clients need me most is when I want to buy that business. And when I come on as they new advisor, the new ownership group there, these people got to want to talk to me. Not just because it's transition, but they're in an environment where this stuff's important to them right now and hey, let's have this conversation and then we say, hey, we're also bringing on new services, here's new ways we're leveling up based off the old business that they're used to.

Aaron Hasler:

Markets trust builds success, right? I mean it's a little bit of, hey, we've got to go out and strengthen the services we're offering to our clients and keep them comfortable in this time. But we also want to be open to and market to new consumers that want to come in. And so I think it's a great time for sellers to come to market and we're seeing that as conversations pick up. It's stressful. They want to go to their clients and say, hey, I have a long range vision for this. I've been planning for this for a number of years. And what a great time to be able to roll that out during a volatile market is to say to your clients, and by the way, while we're taking care of you here today, we're also planning for your future. Let's talk about what is coming down the pike here for a long range succession plan.

Mike Langford:

So another big question that I think is likely on top of mind for would be buyers and prospective sellers alike is how will rising rates impact a sale price of the business. So does a higher cost of acquisition capital translate to a difference in the multiple that'll be paid? We just covered that a little bit. It's like if goes up it maybe not. I guess the multiples based on trailing revenue here, anticipated revenue. So if trailing revenue's fallen off a lot I guess, but they should have some level of comfort that if you're a seller, the multiple staying pretty solid. Right?

Nick Barker:

And it definitely is going to cost you a little bit more on the front end, but what we talked about a little while ago is that I feel like there's a lot more upside right now than when the market's up 20%. It's really that adage of is it going to go up another 20%? I think we've all have a good understanding of what the market's historically done ever since inception. So yes, it might cost a little bit more, but I think there's a lot of great opportunities right now even with that. And yeah, it's not really affecting any valuation metrics at all.

Aaron Hasler:

And we keep asking the same question, Mike around here, and I think it's a fun debate, but I agree with Nick and I think part of it is rates are normalizing to what we were seeing when we first started this company. And it's just that we had this opportunity when COVID hit and rates race to the bottom, that we could really help financial advisors and educate financial advisors on how to play the acquisition game and how to leverage debt financing. And so now we're getting back to more of a... I think we're at a high, because originally we were proving this vertical out and we're proving that financial advisors are great borrowers.

So rates will come back down and normalize. But what we're seeing is that it is still hand to hand relationship building if you're growing organically. And I talked to somebody earlier today that was highly successful at organic growth and I always find those people fascinating because it's incredibly hard to achieve in this business. I think it's probably the hardest element to achieve. And so he talked through it and he had spent a tremendous amount of time and effort building out his organization, his infrastructure, staffing up, taking risks and adding expense to his business for that organic growth. So there's a cost to it.

But then when you look at the acquisition game, it's really hard to replicate that, which is you're getting so many households all at once that you can build relationships with and build relationships quickly and have an immediate impact on your bottom line. And so even though the actual cost of financing has gone up, I think the benefits of the acquisition in that mass scale of client onboarding is super beneficial. And so if you look at the combined of that acquisition in a high rate, but you're still saying, okay, we might get 5% growth out of our business just from organic referrals. Clients referring us business, bringing in new money, plus then we have some market effect and you're easily surpassing that five to 7% cost of capital with more than that in terms of your growth, 7% plus growth.

Mike Langford:

Yeah, and I think you hit on something really important there is that a shock event is not a trend. So you mentioned that the rates went to the bottom because of COVID. That we tried to keep the economy going. We didn't want things cratering. Rates don't stay there, that we're progressing to the mean here of what one would expect for rates. And it's something also similarly that I think most people can understand. It's like, hey, during the pandemic, have you lived in certain places like Austin, Texas? Real estate prices spiked where houses in my neighborhood doubled in price within 18 months and now houses are sitting there not moving.

Well why? Well because guess what? That was a spike effect. It's not a trend how these houses unfortunately are not worth that much money. They were for a very small amount of time when people were fleeing California or wherever these other places and came here. But guess what? That house is not a $1.5 million house. I'm sorry. It's just not. Well, the same is true for things like rates, just because you got used to for a little while, zero rates, they don't stay zero forever. There is a cost of capital it has to feed this engine or whatever, this risk associated with capital and people want to make sure they price those types of things in.

Aaron Hasler:

And I love it because we typically have pretty short term memories for this stuff. If you really sit down and think about it, I can be like, "Oh yeah, my first mortgage back in 2005 was five and three quarter and I thought I was getting her five six and I thought I was getting a tremendous deal". And then you're right, we all refi and enjoy the bottom of the COVID rates. We'll have to come up with some good name for them here in the future. But I think people have to keep living, people have to keep growing, people have to keep buying houses. And so you're going to have an initial sticker shock and then people go back to the normal course of business and we reset to the new normal. It's a wild phenomenon.

Mike Langford:

Well, and to the point of our whole entire conversation here, this type of capital is meant to be put to work. It's meant to go out and acquire a business that produces revenue, produces profit in excess of the cost of capital. Just basic fundamental business 101 type stuff. And so that's what we're hoping to have happen here. And if rates were so egregiously high that there was no rational belief that we could make a profitable business from that, then rates would come down because people would find a different way to finance that growth. Quick question to follow up on the impact and what a buyer and seller might expect. Is this changing the deal structures at all? At higher rate, does it change the deal structure what you see people coming to the table and expecting for the way this deal is going to progress?

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah, it's interesting and I'd be interested to have Nick weigh in too. I have not seen a huge impact per se, from rates from the market. But it really is more directed by the seller who the seller says, okay, revenue might be down a little bit. My AUM might be down a little bit. I'd like a longer deal structure to ensure that revenue gets back to what my high water mark was, which is where they had all mentally established their enterprise value, which I think is totally fine. The idea that a seller might instead of ducking out at 12 months, stick around for 18 months or even 24 months in part to help with market recapture or settling clients is fantastic. Its good continuity for this business and I think it works really well.

So on the investment banking side, we haven't seen a lot of deal structure modification other than an extension of it. But we haven't had buyers coming to us and saying, oh, okay, now that it's gone up another 75 basis points, I'm sure it makes them a little irritated because their cost of acquisition went up a little bit. But I also think it just gives them a determination of, all right, I got to put my head down and I got to grow it that much faster.

Mike Langford:

Yeah.

Nick Barker:

On the financing side, we've seen a lot more focus on the attrition clauses, those claw backs that are, what are those hurdle rates need to be on that AUM 12, 18, 24 months out. But really what we tell all of our buyers is that you want to deal that works at a 3% rate, that works at a 6% rate, that works at 8% rate. If it doesn't work because of those rates, there might be something off that has absolutely nothing to do with those rates. Maybe it's just not a right transaction for you and for the firm.

Mike Langford:

That's a really good point.

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah, I agree. Good acquisition is good acquisition.

Mike Langford:

So we're round in home here. I know we only have a few more minutes together, but I'm sure some advisors would like to have some actionable strategies. What can I do after this podcast or watching this video? So off the top of you guys' mind, what are a few things that they should be doing as they pursue the acquisition or the use of financing for their business in general? It doesn't have to be for acquisition, it could be just, hey, I want to finance some changes that the business. So what are some strategies that they should be thinking of in this rising right environment?

Nick Barker:

Yeah, I think constant communication is the big ticket here. Either with it being on the investment bank side with Aaron, somebody on the financing side, and just talking through, like we talked about earlier, the first transaction for most people, both buyer and seller. So really they're just looking for what's best on both sides of the fence. I had somebody I was talking to this morning, actually, they're really good friends and they just wanted a deal that worked for everybody, which was a great change of pace. But really just trying to educate them on where the rates are going, how it impacts both parties and things like that. There's a lot of consultative, additive nature that can happen in these conversations that can end up structuring the deal in a way that works even in a rising rate environment.

Aaron Hasler:

I agree with Nick. My comment to listeners would be move early. Talk to us at the beginning of the deal. If you're just going into initial conversations, reach out, talk to somebody on the SkyView team about commercial financing, especially if you haven't done it before. And we have our existing borrowers checking in all the time to see where rates are at saying, hey, I'm model. I'm doing cash flow modeling for my next acquisition. What should I expect from a rate perspective? And so we're able to give them that information. But one of the things we are saying is, if you have a deal that you're trying to culminate in December of this year, let's start on it now. Maybe we can actually speed that timeline up and lock your rates in before a couple of these next rate hikes and take advantage of that. So we are saying come out, start speaking to us sooner than you normally would, as you've started having substantive conversations with that seller and let's start figuring out what your options are.

Mike Langford:

I think that's really sound advice. You guys have done this hundreds of times and for most advisors, it's the first time or maybe the second time doing this. So talking to the pros earlier rather than later, they probably know a few things. They've been through this process before. So fantastic advice.

Aaron Hasler:

As long as Nick's not on vacation, he'll return your call pretty proudly.

Mike Langford:

Awesome stuff.

Nick Barker:

Which is only about half the year.

Mike Langford:

That's right. That's very good. That's fantastic. Well, Nick, fantastic to have you on the show. Did a great job on your first episode of the Advisor Financing Forum. And Aaron, always great to have you. Awesome stuff.

Aaron Hasler:

Good. I'm glad we did this and I was going to make Nick wear his Bulls jersey for this podcast, but I decided not to. We won't pressure to[inaudible 00:35:55]-

Mike Langford:

All right, next time we're all coming with our jerseys.

Nick Barker:

If I get invited back, I will be wearing a jersey. Just will not be a Celtics jersey.

Mike Langford:

Oh, well, that's sad for you. I'm sorry. 17 championships. What are you going to do? All right guys, thank you very much. Appreciate you today.

Aaron Hasler:

Thanks, Mike.

Nick Barker:

Thanks. Take care.

Mike Langford:

Thank you very much for joining us today. It was fantastic to have you with us. I know nobody really likes it when rates go up, but as you heard from Nick and Aaron, higher rates really shouldn't negatively impact your ability to get a deal done. If the business is solid, the financing will be there to support it.

Okay, now, before I let you go, if you haven't done so already, please do make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google, the YouTubes, or wherever you like to get your podcast jam on. Just look for the Advisor Financing Forum and you'll find us there. Okay? Or search for SkyView. You also find the podcast that way as well. We are working on a ton of great content and you're not going to want to miss any of it. So click that subscribe button. All right. Lastly, make sure you swing by SkyView.com to learn more about your options for financing to facilitate your plans to buy or sell an RIA or independent financial advisory business. The SkyView team is there to help including Nick, despite his Bulls fandom. I mean, he can't help it, all right. You are the fan of the team that you're the fan of. Bulls fandom aside, he can help you, all right? Anyway, okay, that's it for us today. We'll see you next time on the Advisor Financing Forum Podcast. See y'all. Bye.