Q&A: Money in the City
Allegiance Capital's Pamela Ragon discusses the challenges and joys of being a woman seated at the head of the M&A table.
June 23, 2011
By no means is M&A a man's game. Over the course of her 25-year career, Pamela Ragon of middle-market investment bank Allegiance Capital can attest to the fact that women are becoming more involved in deals than ever before.
Whether they are investment bankers, attorneys or CPAs, their values in dealmaking are essential because the number of women-owned businesses has increased 50% since 1997, she said citing a report released in March by American Express. In addition, women-owned firms make up roughly 29% of all businesses.
At tonight's "Money in the City" conference in Dallas -- indeed, a play on the "Sex and the City" title -- Ragon will speak to a crowd of middle-market professionals on what it means to be a deal pro in Texas, as well as the added values women bring to the M&A negotiation table.
Mergers & Acquisitions caught up with Ragon shortly before the invitation-only event. The following is an edited version of the discussion.
Mergers & Acquisitions: What message are you hoping to get across at the conference?
Ragon: I’m actually doing a few things. I’m talking a bit about M&A activity in Texas and what we think we’re going to see over the next year and what sectors we think will be particularly active. One of the things I’m emphasizing at the outset is that the economic climate in Texas is favorable to M&A due to several factors. One is the economy. It has performed better than the national average. Second is our unemployment rate, which is 8 percent while the national average is around 9 percent. The housing market in Texas is down but it did not suffer a crash like it did in California, Nevada or Arizona. We’re fairly resilient here.
One of the most prominent sectors is energy because there’s resurgence in oil prices. Now, it’s not quite at the height that it was in 2007 but we’re certainly getting there. There’s also the natural gas industry. We have a couple of very active shale gas plays driving activity in Texas. And then there’s the Gulf of Mexico which is getting somewhat back to normal.
Mergers & Acquisitions: What specific values do women bankers bring to the M&A negotiation table?
Ragon: Women tend to focus on relationships, bringing to the negotiation table empathy and also collaborating skills. Women typically want to see both sides walking away feeling like they are satisfied with the outcome. Women are also generally good at multi-tasking, so they can deal with being in conflict and also collaborating with others at the same time.
Mergers & Acquisitons: Can you recall a time where there was miscommunication during a deal and you relied on inherent skills to facilitate a transaction?
Ragon: I can think of a situation where we were negotiating certain elements of a purchase price in an energy deal and some of the people on the sell-side felt like all we were talking about were dollars and cents.
It was a family business with a number of siblings involved. They each had a number of different agendas. There were a couple of folks concerned, asking “How much money am I going to put in my pocket and walk away with?” And there were two others concerned with the future of the company under new owners because they wanted to stay and keep working.
Having gotten to know the client throughout the process like I did, I put together a deal structure that had a certain incentive for those who wanted to stay versus those who wanted to walk away. It required some finesse. I was able to come to the table with some creative ideas to help them get past personal issues and meet their respective goals.
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