About Us
TJ Bender & Company, Inc., (TJBCO) is an independent Atlanta-based investment bank and FINRA registered broker dealer formed in 2018. TJBCO provides M&A, capital raising, and related advisory services to businesses, family offices, and private equity firms.
Prior to forming TJBCO, Mr. Bender and Edward S. Croft III co-founded Croft & Bender LP in 1996. Croft & Bender, LP has since grown to become one of the oldest and most successful southeastern based boutique investment banks. (www.croft-bender.com)
In 2000, Mr. Bender and Mr. Croft co-founded C&B Capital, a Croft & Bender-affiliated private equity fund that has invested in more than forty companies across various industries and growth stages and achieved top quartile returns for LP’s. Mr. Bender remains an active GP in C&B Capital’s three funds.
Prior to Croft & Bender, Mr. Bender spent 20 years at The Robinson-Humphrey Company, Inc., becoming a Managing Director of its Corporate Finance Department and a member of its board of directors.
Services
TJBCO is differentiated by Mr. Bender’s broad range of experience, in both the public and private capital markets, acting as both agent and principal, across many industries, ownership structures and types of transactions during the widely varying market conditions of the past four decades.
TJBCO is well prepared to help mid-sized companies efficiently access the national capital markets whether raising equity or debt and whether the capital is to be used for growth, liquidity, or both.
TJBCO is accustomed to working through sensitive situations such as where one partner is buying out another or one generation is buying out the next, or where several existing shareholders desire liquidity while others prefer continuing to finance the growth of the company.
Capital Raising
Middle market businesses currently have access to the widest range of capital sources ever offered and at a cost of capital that is as favorable as it has been in the past fifty years. TJBCO’s contacts with financial institutions and other investment banks are nationwide and have been cultivated over decades of continuous market interaction.
TJBCO believes the valuation, transaction structure and cultural fit between a company and a capital provider are all essential considerations. Raising equity capital is forming a partnership and that partnership should be fully negotiated, priced by the broader market, and occur between partners having well aligned objectives and skills.
M&A & Strategic Advisory Services
Selling a significant interest in one’s business is not an easily made decision, and there are numerous key considerations in addition to valuation.
TJBCO is accustomed to working with closely held business owners to make sure they have a clear understanding of all financing and strategic alternatives, how their business will be valued, how they can proactively prepare for market, and how the amount of liquidity they will ultimately realize from a sale or partial sale of their business will be determined.
TJBCO’s preferred approach to the M&A process allows TJBCO to maximize value for the client, while minimizing disruption to their business operations. Generally, such a process will involve helping the company prepare and organize appropriate information, drafting a disclosure document or presentation and then arranging meetings with a limited number of carefully chosen and highly qualified financial or strategic buyers. TJBCO’s objective is to properly position the opportunity for the right investors, and create competition among those investors that will result in a strong valuation, market tested terms and several back up offers.
Buy Side Consulting Services
TJBCO represents private equity funds and strong experienced management teams seeking acquisitions.
For private equity funds that have well defined and targeted acquisition interests, TJBCO’s wide range of contacts across many industries can often result in an introduction to an attractive company that is not currently involved in a sale process. These introductions may result in a near term opportunity or one where a relationship is initiated and developed over a longer period of time.
TJBCO also welcomes opportunities to represent outstanding management teams in locating investors willing to back them in the acquisition of identified companies. Financial institutions welcome such situations as finding the right management team is often as difficult for them as finding the right company in which to invest.
Family Office Consulting Services
Family offices are playing an increasingly important role in the private equity markets and TJBCO’s skills and interests are particularly well aligned with such investors.
TJBCO can assist family offices in vetting transactions proposed to them from any source. This vetting service can consist of anything from an informal opinion to the management of an in-depth due diligence process. TJBCO can assist in sourcing quality investments and, where appropriate, is interested in co-investing alongside the client family office. In addition, TJBCO can provide liquidity where desired for existing illiquid investments.
In summary, TJBCO can help source opportunities, help vet opportunities, execute secondary market transactions, and if appropriate, make a material co-investment.