Month: January 2021

Aligning Investment Banking Fees with Client Interests

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As a boutique investment bank, we expend a lot of effort providing high quality advice and service to our middle-market investment bank clients. We understand the need to align our investment banking services and fees with our clients’ interests, because ultimately, we act as our clients’ advocate. Completing transactions is difficult; we need to be working together. The following is a brief primer related to investment banking fees.

Retainer A credible middle market investment bank will charge a non-refundable retainer. There are two primary reasons for the retainer: (1) it covers the time and expense incurred in preparing the client to go to market and (2) it serves as a screening mechanism to ensure that the client is committed to the transaction. This retainer may be paid as a lump sum, over time or based on achievement of certain activities associated with the transaction process. This retainer should represent a minor portion of the overall fee. Sometimes retainers or portions of retainers are credited toward the success fee.

Success Fee The success fee, representing the majority of compensation, is tied to successful completion of a transaction and is structured as a percentage of the deal size. For capital raises, a fee percentage is applied to the amount of capital raised. The fee percentage increases as one moves from raising senior debt (perceived as less risky and ranges from 1%-2%) to junior debt (more risky) to equity (perceived as most risky and ranges from 5%-10%). Some fee arrangements include an “equity kicker” in the form of warrants. The size of the deal may also influence the fee percentage; the larger the deal the smaller the percentage. For merger and acquisition services, the fee percentage is applied to the overall size of the transaction. Although many business brokers refer to the Lehman formula, few mid-market investment banks use this structure. Instead, they may quote a straight fee percentage or a performance based progressive fee, which increases based on achieving a certain valuation target. The higher the companys valuation (the more dollars the seller puts in his pocket), the higher the investment bankers fee percentage. Progressive fee arrangements provide a strong incentive for the investment banker while aligning the parties’ interests in maximizing the value of the transaction to the client’s owners.

Final Comments. As with most things in life, keep the fee arrangement simple. Haggling over unique, low probability circumstances or creating complex fee structures generally backfires. Complex arrangements tend to cause uncertainty and can result in lack of motivation and focus from the investment banker, not what the client desires. You get what you pay for. Expect to pay a reasonable, market fee. Receiving an engagement letter containing a low fee (potentially with no retainer), indicates a low level of sophistication. Conversely, an engagement letter quoting an out-of-market high fee indicates someone wanting to take advantage of a client. These are not investment bankers you want handling your important deal.

About Wilcox | Swartzwelder & Co. Wilcox Swartzwelder and Co. based in Dallas, Texas, is a boutique investment bank providing merger and acquisition services and corporate finance advisory services to middle market companies in the energy, industrial and infrastructure sector. The Firm delivers a high level of personal service, in-depth industry knowledge, rigorous transaction execution and superior results. Principals have successfully completed almost 100 transactions with aggregate value in excess of $3.6 billion.

Mr. Jason Wilcox 433 E. Las Colinas Blvd. Waterway Tower, Suite 1200 Irving, TX 75039 972-831-1300 www.ws-ibank.com

Securities offered through Petro Growth Energy Advisors, LLC., member FINRA/SIPC.

Strategic Management of Business Strategies is The Reason Behind a Successful Innovation

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Practically
most of the innovations that we enjoy in our life have been made a
success because of these managers who manage the innovations otherwise
most of them would have been nipped in the bud due to lack of proper
guidance and follow up. First questions that we should ask ourselves is
what is a strategy? Though it is a simple word in general but when
related to business it is the guiding star for the development and
success of a business over a long term resulting in growth of that
organization. It is a planning that takes the company to an advantageous
position by utilizing the proper resources in the form of human or
materials. Simply this is business strategy and the success of an
organization betting on an innovation for the future depends on how well
the strategy is maintained by the strategist or simply the top notch
people in that organization.

A
very good example can be seen in the case of IBM who have in fact got
master strategists guiding the company. It is a grand success because
they have utilized their man power to the fullest and understood the
requirement of the world before anybody else thought about it. The
management organized seminars and invited various business personnel to
understand their requirements. Then they simply sorted out which is the
mot required thing that can be easily introduced in the market for
financial gains of the company. Here lies the brilliance of the
strategists of the company. Sorting out the innovative ideas and to pick
the right one is something which has brought this company in the
limelight and leapfrogged them ahead of its competitors in terms of
financial gains by a long way.

The man who has given the world
the most innovative ideas is Mr.Steve Jobs. Everybody remembers him
because of his innovations which are really grand. But truly nobody
remembers the man behind the curtain who planned and helped him execute
his innovative ideas into a reality. We would all have been deprived of
these brilliant innovations if the strategy taken was a poor one and
then these innovations would have tumbled head over heals. The company
gained a lot and the innovator got the praise he rightly deserved but
the planner never came in front.

So
the fundamental logic that we can derive is that behind all innovations
success lies the hand of a good business strategies. The strategic
management of these strategies convert to financial gains for the
company subsequently leading to more successes and thus strengthening
the backbone of the company.

Youtube Seo Strategy For Business Sectors

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There had been much discussion on the ways and the strategies to optimise the videos for the YouTube channels. The strategy and the formulation adopted by the experts to optimise the YouTube in the best way possible. Its a proven and tested formula, by optimising the videos on the YouTube; it enhances the chances of being shown up on the organic Google search results. I would like to point out here more importantly; the role of Google here is just to drive the very specific video-based search result directly to the YouTube and not to the corporate websites or one can say in a way crisp, directly to a companys landing page.

Lets discuss or rather give a thought on the specific clever ways by which the corporate can easily get the visitors directly to the companys landing pages.

You are Profile on YouTube

Your SEO-setup to achieve that promising optimization of the videos for particularly your corporate website, any bidding advertiser can ensure that well aimed strategy and planning, by making it sure without any fail to incorporate the companys URL in their particular YouTube profile section.

SEO targeted keywords in the Title

By including, the particular targeted SEO keywords; in the videos is another important part of that well envisioned strategy and planning of the SEO for benefitting from the YouTube videos.

Focus on the Description

SEO has to be very particular about the kind and the quality of the video description. Its usually been kept short and crisp within the range of 27 characters. Be sure that you add your companys URL in the very first part of your description. One can include their marketing program link as well. The description will be an excellent carrier of the visitors to your corporate website, if you are certainly including the follow me links directing to the blog section and the twitter account.

Be categorically specific

Yes of course, the category that you are choosing that one category that will allow your corporate video to be well fitted to turn the tables around. There have been a limited category options available on the YouTube. One smart act you can certainly do is to keep a check on what your competitors are doing. You can certainly consider the categories that your competitor has selected.

That best appealing Video Thumbnail for your corporate video.

We know that mostly YouTube users stay limited towards the selection of the video thumbnail images. You make it sure that you chose the one of the most appealing and the best image which inculcates the corporate logo.

Tags, be limited.

Tags are undoubtedly important for making your corporate video in a way more chances of being found. I am talking about the specific point that you should have been using the minimum of only almost 10 descriptive tags for your video each. You should have multi-word tags as just one word tag, which is always a better strategy as per the latest web analytics. Minimum of the 10 descriptive tags for each video is what you need to do. Web-Analytics have been in much favor to this point. You can also mirror the tags with the specific word order on YouTube.

Tagging for the Locations

I will put it straight; tagging the location once your corporate video is uploaded is another master stroke for the SEO. This will help your corporate video well streamlined with the Google Maps and the specific Google places. Yes, top of the all, your Corporate YouTube video will be right there on the Google Earth searches.

Captions & Subtitles to get that linked text.

Lets talk about the importance of the captions which are any time important, if you upload the closed caption texts and the specific subtitles as the texts are searchable. The very of auto transcription has never been accurate. A closed caption text being selected for the videos is always a good option. SEO dont necessarily have to get each and every word matched with the video, the additional target keywords specifically in the closed captions works wonder. You better be using the words like its or our addressing the companys brand and the name.

Thumbs up from the Subscribers / Community

When you get the comments and the thumbs-up from the specific group of the subscribers and the people well targeted, is another well laid planning for your specific Digital marketing campaigns. It is going to give great thumbs up for the search ranking for the corporate videos in the YouTube. You should have to be careful in identifying the relevant subscribers, to be following your corporate video on the YouTube.

Consider Sales Jokes For Your Next Sales Training Session

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This is a mistake on their part because it has been found that a sales team meeting will be much more productive where the sales manager includes jokes on sales which alleviate any sense of tension or concern amongst the sales team. Quite often when sales meetings are called, the sales team will be anxious particularly if they have fallen short of their targets, quite often there will be an element of fear of the sales manager, simply because of his or her position of seniority.

These emotions are negative and will often counter all the good knowledge on sales skills and techniques that the sales manager may impart during a meeting. By including sales jokes and sales training jokes time to time in a sales training session or a weekly sales meeting to review business volumes the sales manager will engage the team far more effectively and far from creating any element of disrespect, will find that the sales team will relate much better to the sales manager, and as a result more driven to achieve the sales targets set by the company.

A survey of sales mangers conducted in Melbourne, clearly shows that those mangers who introduced humour in their sales meeting by way of a good sales meeting joke here and there developed far greater motivation levels in their sales teams than those who chose to avoid the use of any such sales jokes or sales training jokes in their sessions.

Where sales jokes were incorporated into the training or coaching sessions there was a much greater sense of company loyalty, the sales team was much more cooperative and importantly they felt that they could approach the sales manager and openly discuss any concerns or difficulties they were facing in the sales process.

Simply by including a sales training joke or general sales jokes in any meeting improved the business volumes achieved on a weekly basis and ultimately delivered a much improved profit for those companies where humour has been embraced in their organizational culture. The importance of including all staff in a shared sales joke should not be underestimated.

The re-telling of a good joke about sales or management has a positive influence as each member of the staff shares a laugh with one another through the course of the working day.
While many senior company personnel are concerned about the risk that adult sales jokes or other inappropriate jokes may be told within the office, it should not discourage the use of jokes on sales carte blanche.

Companies can embrace humour but ensure that no offense is caused by putting together some simple guidelines that clearly state what is and what is not acceptable.

Internet Sales Letter Magic

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Imagine spending thousands of dollars on web design, bells, whistles, a flash intro, and an array of colors. Firstly, this is a big waste of time, money, and effort. Also, this is like building a gaudy and non-functional house without a foundation. Your web site is a key sales tool. Fortunately, web sites do not have to be pretty in order to be effective.

In the above-mentioned case, no forethought is given to the first step in building a web site. The first and most important part of web site construction is your cover page, sales process, and the least expensive ways to send targeted traffic to your web site.

Unless your web site is just a hobby, it should function as an automated 24-hour sales person, seven days per week. Your Internet sales letter is much more than a business card or company brochure. A properly constructed sales letter is a separate entity and can possibly close sales by itself.

When you have an idea about a great Internet product or service, have researched the demand, have chosen the best URL, and developed an outline of your proposed site – your next step should be to develop an award-winning sales letter. This proposed sales letter should be packed with unique content that drives visitors to you and captures their interest.

Your sales letter should thoroughly describe the benefits of your product or service. At the same time, your product or service should solve a problem that your potential clients have encountered. Therefore, any successful sales letter will have to fulfill a genuine need.

The right sales letter should develop trust from the very start and tell an interesting story along the way. This is not a guarantee of an instant sale, but the start of a relationship – built on credibility and trust. Your prospects visit your site because your product or service has sparked an interest.

Prospects visit your site for a multitude of reasons – but do you know why? Do you know the top reasons why your existing customers choose you, over your competition? This knowledge is essential when constructing a sales letter for your web site.

Lastly, when deciding how to construct your sales letter, you have many choices, but choose wisely and research your choices. If you decide to hire a sales copy writer, make sure his or her previous works have produced results or are persuasive in content. If you decide to purchase the least expensive writer available, do not expect good results. When seeking out a sales copy writer, you will get what you pay for.

Copyright 2006 Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Find A Right Career

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Most students find it difficult to choose a career. When they come to the crossroad of finding a solution to their dilemma, they are helpless. Deciding on a career depends upon a number of things, such as interest, aptitude, skill, work-related values, and personality.

Career planning is a multi-step process that involves learning about yourself, your interests and the occupations which you are considering in order to make an informed decision. If you have a career in mind and want to get started in the field immediately, consider the institute and course option that is best suited for that career. Three-year degree programme colleges or technical schools can prepare you for hands-on experience. So instead of choosing a career based on what you think you should do, we want to help you find a career that suits your personality.

Young boys and girls, just out of their class Xth and XIIth board exams are full of questions and do not have the answers to most. YQWorld.com is the right place to find all the answers to your queries.

YQWorld.com powered by Integrid Media, is a portal specially designed for young achievers. It promises to guide and help you choose the right path to make your further studies satisfying and enjoyable. There are more than 500 careers listed on the site with detailed information and more than 1500 linked courses. We have a variety of category-wise institute options across India and overseas for different career and course options.
To browse through our comprehensive career listing, you can check the following link –

YQ World also helps you with industry information to help you know your career industry better and the various options available.
Our Counsellors Corner enables you to post queries and YQ Experts revert back within 48 hours. To post your queries click here:

In our Study Overseas section you can browse through country-wise information on course & institute options, cost of living, visa requirements, eligibility, standardized test etc. which helps you prepare for your travel and stay in another country. To know more visit, www.YQWorld.com/studyoverseas/

Apart from this, loads of information is available on Distance Learning and Coaching Classes, training on competitive exams such as CAT, SAT, IIT-JEE, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS etc. All this will help you narrow down your search process and will help you make an educated decision about the career you want to pursue.

So log on to www.YQWorld.com today and make a bright career choice for a better tomorrow!

Infrastructure investment essential for SA shipping industry

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The shipping industry is a key player in South Africa’s major successes despite global economic insecurity, but investment in infrastructure is the only way for it to continue to thrive. To safeguard the shipping industry for the future and keep the ‘gateway to Africa’ open, stakeholders and businesses must consider the opportunities open to them when it comes to investing in innovations and infrastructures to support new vessels.

The vast majority of South Africa’s important and exports are transported by sea, making it an industry that had weathered hard times well and one that is guaranteed to continue to perform well in the future. For businesses to be able to continue to capitalise on this success, they must think about making changes for the future during a period of relative stability for the industry.

Ports, terminals and rails are among the essentials that the SA shipping industry should be considering as ripe for innovation. To remain strong and continue to capitalise on the commence already in hand, thinking ahead of the curve and creating new infrastructure that can keep up with the demands of tomorrow is key. The country remains strategically positioned to access global trade routes and hold a prominent economic position in Africa, but these strengths could be eroded in time, as other countries and industries advance their own technological prowess.

To be able to afford to invest in the future, many shipping companies are being forced to look as ways to boost efficiency. A global economy suffering from recently recessions and financial disasters has ensured a period of stagnation when it comes to prices for freight shipping, which may be set to change in the future. However, increases in price cannot simply be passed on to customers and clients, forcing shipping innovators to instead look for ways they can boost their productivity while cutting costs.

Energy is an area that is offering many shipping businesses the opportunity to save. By moving away from costly legacy systems and taking advantage of some of the state-of-the-art, environmentally responsible generators that are currently available, they can boost efficiency and cut overheads. New and improved temperature control equipment can also offer huge savings for shipping companies that have to spend a lot of money on keeping cargo at a particular temperature. Modern, efficient solutions can cut power consumption while ensuring temperatures are perfectly regulated.

By looking at areas that are currently functioning but may not be performing to the best of their abilities, shipping companies have the opportunity to scale down their expenses and free up more money to invest in the kind of innovations that will safeguard the industry for the future. To remain profitable in the long term, it is essential to look beyond yearly bottom lines and to instead search for ways they can make long term improvements, this allows them to harness the improvements in essentials such as power generation and look forward to new infrastructure that will be able to take advantage of the advancements.

Leading Industrial Design Companies from Ideas to Innovation

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If you love brainstorming sessions at your work place then you can
understand that is the starting point or the birth of any great idea.
For industrial design companies these sessions are what bring about a
unique blend of various view points, of various members of an
organization; each possessing a unique knowledge of the subject. So when
clients sit in on these meetings they can actually see the team in
action and know that yes; this is the place where he will see his best
product created and hope for something great every time he comes back.

Industry Needs Addressed


Industries run on equipment that work day in and day out. So what you
as clients are looking for are strong designs that will withstand the
test of time and continue to satisfy users across the globe. It doesn’t
matter if the client has a large global presence or is just a small
family owned business, a need to create something innovative is present
almost everywhere. Today’s competitive climate demands that hard labor
be replaced with sound ideas that will remove part of the labor
intensive work and put forth something that is reliable and cost
effective as well. For stable industrial design firms, that becomes the
starting point of their innovation strategies.

The Objective of the Design


A design cannot be successful unless it solves the problem for which it
was created. For example, if an industrial firm needs an equipment belt
to be made with a design that helps flip the contents over onto a
waiting vehicle then that is exactly what needs to be created. If the
prepared concept, by the appointed industrial design firm, needs an
extra pair of hands to flick a switch every time something passes then
the intention is incomplete and doesn’t serve its purpose. That does not
mean that ideas cannot veer off from its original course but the
destination has to be what is really needed at that point of time. So
the final design has to be practically tested and used to understand if
any flaws are present and eventually corrected to actually serve the
purpose for which it was created.

Expert Craftsmen At Your Service


For a company that thrives on innovation, no restriction exists that
can bind their creative visions. Be it in a user interface environment
where a product directly relates to customers like a mobile application
or equipment that takes into account the health of the user and serves
the medical fraternity. This is the part where medical device
development can really change the way healthcare industries work. A
strong design can not only help the client but will address the overall
healthcare sector. Challenges are faced in every sphere of life and a
superbly able designer can bring together a strongly engineered and
developed idea, turn it into a product, take it through a long grueling
process from innovation to verification, testing and then finally to
manufacturing the approved product.

Upcoming Challenges For Mobile Development & Mobile Marketing

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The digital world is evolving and the trends are changing in real world, making the world faster than ever before and technology more stable. Mobile is all about today’s world which took birth with the invention of first pager in 1956. The world started getting mobile and the launch of first commercial mobile phone by NTT in Japan was the next step to stabilize this mobility.

The innovation in this mobility with SMS happened to be originated in Europe in 1985. SMS was a boom in the later part of 1900s and early 2000s, and still it’s the top cellular activity. Now, there’re above 4 billion mobile phone subscribers, with 74% of them using SMS of which 94% of SMSs are read. Just in UK 1.4 billion text messages now being sent every week.

This is just about mobile phones and SMS, innovations like iPhone, Blackberry, Android and mobile-internet integration are constanly opening the new horizons of excellence for mobile marketing. Web marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing methods with maximum outreach. Since there’re more mobile phone subscribers than that of internet users, so mobile opens broad ways for marketing from small and medium to large businesses.

Mobile-web integrated marketed is still in the process of development, reason being the lack of awareness among most of mobile phone subscribers, i.e. there’re about 10 million users worldwide using GPRS services that makes only about 0.25% of the total subscribers. But, this low percentage doesn’t mean that mobile marketing is not growing. There’re various alternative methods within mobile marketing including SMS Marketing, Ingame Mobile Marketing, Location Based Services etc.

Ingame Mobile Marketing is the fastly growing area and the future of mobile marketing. The reason is that more than 90% of mobile phone subscribers play mobile games. From simple interactive real-time 3D games to massive multi-player and social networking games, mobile gaming is everywhere. This trend is accelerating the growth of mobile 2.0 on one hand and hence the mobile development on other.

Mobile development being the next big thing is now the focus of small, medium and large business, and hence it’s becoming a competitive industry. The cometition is becoming tougher as the industry leaders Nokia and Google have moved to opensource, and this situation is critical for ISVs. ZDNet also reports that, it’ll not be the great UI as only challenge instead, things that matter more are ideas and methodologies. Though ISV’s are more under pressure, but companies will have equal pressure and will have to face almost same challenges. It’ll be the race of collective innovation [what I can term it as] or Product Innovation [combination of innovation in methodologies, design, productivity etc] so, innovation in over all performance will win!

Top 3 management certification programs considered best in the industry

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Currently the trend to get certification in a management program is on the rise due to the fact it accouters the professional with the knowledge and skills to manage a process, project or technology effectively. More importantly, it helps a professional to climb up the corporate ladder or get a high salaried job. Since there is a score of certification exams, it becomes difficult to decide which certification exam is apt to go for. To help professionals to arrive at a decision on which certification program to opt for, we have listed down a few top management certification programs and given an overview about them.

PMI’s PMP training & certification

The Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is one of the management programs which is always on demand, valued and given a high consideration during recruitment. By enrolling for a PMP certification program, a professional learns to manage various phases of a project such as Initiation, Planning, Executing, Controlling, and Closing. It follows the methodology as per management norms like ISO 9000 and is based on the guidelines of Project Management Body of Knowledge, also known as PMBOK Guide, formulated by Project Management Institute (PMI).

APMG-International’s ITIL Certification

APMG-International’s ITIL– Information Technology Infrastructure Library – UK, is a technology management certification program. Its content is structured to impart knowledge to the professionals with which they can identify the missing key technological elements and incorporate them in the existing project to propel a project’s output to the greater heights.

As per a report, professionals having ITIL certification received $122,000, on an average. On the other hand, on an average, Service Manager with ITIL certification got $125,000, in US.

Various ITIL Training and certifications programs are:

1. ITIL Foundation certification
2. ITIL Managing across the Lifecycle (MALC) certification
3. ITSM certification
4. ITIL Intermediate RCV certification
5. ITIL Expert certification
6. ITIL Intermediate CSI certification
7. ITIL Intermediate SS certification
8. ITIL Intermediate SO certification
9. ITIL Intermediate OSA certification
10. ITIL Intermediate SD certification
11. ITIL Intermediate SOA certification
12. ITIL Intermediate PPO certification
13. ITIL Intermediate ST certification

Microsoft Professional 2013

Microsoft Professional 2013 is a product of Microsoft Corporation – USA. It has been designed to render professionals with the knowledge and competence to explore all aspects and processes of a project right from resources to investment cost to deadline to progress track.

Overview: Features of Microsoft Professional 2013

1. Interoperability: Allows different projects to communicate with Project Server database on the Internet or common resource pool.
2. Allows to schedule and manage projects
3. Schedule Project Timeline
4. SharePoint 2013 synchronization
5. Allows to conducts what-if analysis
6. Track resource’s progress and spot problems in the project
7. Project Graphical Reports
8. Allows to track path of different tasks
9. Allows easy sharing

Due to its ability to offer a host of useful features to manage a project, it is one of the commonly used products and hence certified Training in MS Project 2013 will help professionals to stand out from the crowd and stand a better chance to get promoted or land with a lucrative managerial job.