HKW's CEO, Ted H. Kramer, splits the firm's work into four jobs instead of two.
HKW is a 123-year-old firm: merchant bank, then investment bank, then five private equity fund vintages. Now they operate as an independent sponsor, with at least four senior partners, each owning one pillar: sourcing, transaction, operations, and exit.
Sponsors usually balance two things: deal flow and operations. Ted points out that's not nuanced enough. Sourcing and closing both require business development focus, and doing both at once is hard.
Splitting sourcing from transaction means the sourcing partner keeps sourcing instead of getting pulled into closing. Same on the ops side. It's easy to get stuck in the day-to-day and lose sight of the exit. HKW has a partner whose only job is exit: preparing companies early, before there's any pressure to sell.
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