Closing Thoughts: A Sword, Not A Shield

Introducing Closing Thoughts, a new series from Britehorn Co-Founder Brett Story on the people, lessons and perspectives that have made Britehorn Securities what it is today— and continues to bring valuable perspective as our growing list of affiliates drive us forward.

From Brett Story...

Starting Britehorn with my partners Bobbi and Andrew was scary. It was exciting too, of course, and ultimately the optimism and opportunity around what we planned to build carried the day. But there were a lot of decisions that went into setting up a new practice. We had all come from the deal world, and in many ways, executing deals was the least of our worries. Things like branding, office space, roles and responsibilities, setting up technology, compliance and regulations, how to market ourselves — and ultimately, where the first deal would come from — all took up much more time than I had anticipated.

It was a leap of faith, but one that I now count as one of the most special blessings in my life and one of the best decisions I have ever made.

As a former corporate and securities lawyer, questions around compliance and regulations were top of mind for me — maybe much to the annoyance of my new partners. In hindsight, though, I know we are all glad that we built our investment banking practice on a firm foundation by choosing to become FINRA-licensed.

We started by outsourcing compliance oversight to a local broker-dealer here in Denver, which was a great way for us to keep costs down and focus on our core business of capital raising and M&A. Over time, though, we had the unique opportunity to purchase the broker-dealer — which made sense for us at the time because we could staff the compliance roles ourselves, and we were really just supervising our own securities work.

Eventually, we began to receive inquiries about offering broker-dealer services to others, which we did for a small handful of “friends of the firm” and the sales team of one large fund based in Texas. During those years, the broker-dealer business was the icing on the cake for our core deal practice, which had begun to get traction as we started to move upstream into the world of middle-market M&A advisory. We didn’t think of the broker-dealer as its own business — just a small, complementary revenue stream that helped keep the lights on between deal closings.

People trained as lawyers are, by nature, a bit oriented toward the “downside” of a situation, and I was certainly of the mindset at that time that being FINRA-licensed and owning the broker-dealer would provide us regulatory cover and protection for situations where our ability to execute a certain type of transaction and/or receive success fees might be questioned by either parties to the transaction or regulators, state or federal.

And that is true — licensure is a shield.

What I didn’t anticipate, though, was the prominent role that our status as a regulated entity would play as a sword: It differentiated us from the competition, established our bona fides as trained professionals bound by a set of ethical standards, and opened doors to conversations with sophisticated deal lawyers, accountants, wealth managers and their business-owner clients who were only really prepared to trust the process to a fully licensed investment bank.

I want to give credit where credit is due to my friend and colleague Ben Brickweg of Sagewood Business Advisors, who I first heard use the “sword, not a shield” metaphor. Ben is one of the many M&A advisors who now license with us on the Britehorn Securities broker-dealer platform, which has grown from that small, complementary business line to a full-scale practice of its own, supporting more than 70 independent advisors and processing tens of millions in aggregate commission volume over the last few years.

I am proud to lead those efforts with the support of my partners and our outstanding Director of Compliance, Natalia. I am a grateful man — grateful for our team, grateful for the bit of luck we’ve had over the years, grateful for the opportunity to serve business owners who have trusted us with the sale of their businesses, and grateful now for the growing list of advisors, placement agents and investment bankers who have chosen to trust Britehorn Securities with their compliance needs.

This new series, Closing Thoughts, is intended as both a thank you and a way to feature some of these talented M&A advisors and investment bankers. Each has a unique story. Each has a unique approach. All serve their clients with professionalism and integrity and, ultimately, help drive life-changing outcomes for business owners looking to capitalize on a life’s work. I am looking forward to introducing them — not simply for recognition, but because they all have something impactful to say about selling a business: what to look out for, where opportunities lie and how to keep perspective.

Thanks for being here,

Brett