Thursday, March 17, 2016

"Silicon Valley’s ‘undertaker’ is busier these days"

I'm thinking you don't want to see this guy pulling into the parking lot uninvited.
From the Mercury-News' SiliconBeat blog:
The dry IPO period we are in has resulted in more business for Martin Pichinson, co-president and co-founder of Sherwood Partners, a financial consulting firm with offices in Mountain View.

Sherwood is often called on to help with the dissolution of companies. It has been referred to as Silicon Valley’s “undertaker,” reportedly closing 180 companies during the dot-com bubble fallout.
I called Pichinson after seeing CB Insights’ report this week that in the second half of this year, so-called “unicorns” will likely need to raise more money. If they can’t, there will be carnage.

Pichinson said his firm is working on roughly 10 dissolutions a month in the tech space, about double what it was doing a year ago.

There may be a bit of a shake-out, he said, although he looks at it as “we are just pulling out the winners.” A tech bubble bust, he says, won’t happen until next year. Presumably, things will then get even busier for firms like Sherwood.

In addition to its restructuring service, Sherwood also assesses company’s financial health before there is a crisis. This work, too, has picked up recently, he said. Investors, executives and boards call on Sherwood to get a take on a company’s burn rate and potential pitfalls....MORE