International Women’s Day

Greetings from Avante!

Wishing you all well in this new year!

On this International Women’s Day, we want to recognize all of the hard work that women have done both at work and at home to keep their families, firms, and the economy afloat in the last two years. The countless hours women spend on domestic work (cooking, cleaning, caring for children or elderly/infirm family members, etc.) has largely gone unrecognized throughout history. The New York Times estimates that if American women earned minimum wage for the unpaid work they do around the house and caring for relatives, they would have made $1.5 trillion in 2019.

While women are more than happy to care for their families and households, the widespread struggle to meet the rising demands of unpaid domestic labor while performing at their jobs has only been exacerbated during the pandemic. The UN Women estimates that women perform three times as much unpaid labor as their male counterparts. This workload has only increased during Covid. All of these factors have caused women to leave the workforce at unprecedented volumes. While the pandemic has been a difficult time for women in the workforce, we are hopeful that these conversations are just the beginning of a fundamental shift in the conversation about unpaid labor, how it disproportionately affects women, and what we can do to better support them.

At Avante, we are continuing to push the conversation towards permanent remote or hybrid work schedules, so working women, especially working mothers, have the opportunities to be successful in their careers without having to sacrifice their personal commitments. We are proud to announce that we will continue to be a hybrid workplace even after the pandemic concludes because we understand the importance of having flexibility and work-from-home options for working parents, regardless of gender. We firmly believe that in finance, we can be just as productive and successful without working in the office full time. Taking the needs of women into account will allow firms to recruit and retain highly qualified women, all while increasing workplace productivity. Avante is committed to advocating on behalf of women everywhere, and we welcome ideas from our network on how we can best support you. We hope we can see you all in person this year, either at our happy hours, conference events, or when we visit your cities!

WOMEN’S NETWORK UPDATES

The Women’s Operating Network is comprised of experienced and well-respected women executives and operators across various industries. This network aims to connect our partners and portfolio companies with women for available executive and board member roles. If you have any potential candidates to refer to the program, please contact  Danielle Rosales at rosales@avantecap.com.

We are constantly building a network of Women in Private Equity. If you have a resume to share, job posting, or want to be added to the distribution list, please contact Danielle Rosales at rosales@avantecap.com.

INVESTMENT CRITERIA

Products:
Unitranche / One-Stop Debt
Second Lien Debt
Mezzanine Debt
Minority Equity

Company Criteria:
EBITDA of $3-20MM
EBITDA Margins > 10%
Defensible Market Niche or Competitive Advantage
Stable and Diverse Customer Base
Consistent Historical Financial Performance
Headquartered in the United States

Financing Focus:
Sponsored
Invest $5-45MM per Investment (Up to $100MM for Synthetic Unitranche)

Transaction Types:
Buyouts
Growth Capital
Acquisitions
Leveraged Recapitalizations
Refinancings

Target Industries:
Healthcare
Business Services
Education
Software
Niche Manufacturing