Dresner Hires Sladnick To Provide Buy-Side Advice

Dresner Investment Services, a Chicago-based mid-market investment bank, has hired Clifford “Cliff” Sladnick as its buy-side managing director. Sladnick comes to Dresner after serving as Brunswick Corp.’s VP of m&a for the last five years. At Dresner, he will offer clients what is, in effect, an outsourced business development function designed to give middle-market companies a full spectrum of strategic advice on acquisitions. “I’ve learned that companies can’t do acquisitions in a vacuum. We can help clients marry their business strategy with their acquisition,” he says. The buy-side fee approach he will use at Dresner will be based on hourly fees and retainers rather than the success fee structure that is the customary payment for bankers, he notes. “This fee structure will allow me to advise companies with complete objectivity.” As the head of Brunswick’s m&a activities, Sladnick helped grow the Fortune 500 firm to become the nation’s largest boat builder and a major manufacturer of marine engines, and aided the company’s expansion into the fitness industry. Prior to his stint at Brunswick, Sladnick was a senior manager at St. Paul Bancorp. Before that, he was a partner at McDermott Will & Emery. In all, he has completed about 200 transactions with a total value exceeding $5 billion. In running up those numbers he had done securities offerings, capital raising, financing, and valuations, as well as m&a. Sladnick was contemplating starting his own firm, but after speaking with Dresner founder Steve Dresner, he says he came to the conclusion that he could provide the type of investment banking services he envisioned from within Dresner. Sladnick believes he’ll be able to leverage the skill set he developed at Brunswick to counsel middle-market managers. “At Brunswick we used i-bankers and they tended to look at the situation from 30,000 feet, and often the due diligence and understanding of our business was lacking. At Dresner, I plan to offer objective advice based on an understanding of the client’s business.” He adds that he will be calling on the business development people at companies more frequently than on the CEOs. His experience and willingness to work post-deal closing and help with integration, he states, will ensure that clients are able to achieve their strategic goals. While Sladnick is the only buy-side team member at the firm now, he expects to expand the headcount as conditions warrant. He also stresses that the firm’s sell-side activities will complement his efforts to represent executives shopping for assets. “There’s going to be a lot of cross-fertilization as we try to provide the best investment banking services possible for our middle-market clients.” Copyright 2004 Thomson Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thomsonmedia.com http://www.majournal.com