“I've always kind of abided by the principle of: it's good sometimes in life to get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” says Sylvester “Sly” Burley of his decision to join Avante Capital Partners in 2019. Up until that point in his career, Sly’s experience was in private equity. When he saw the opportunity to join a private credit platform that was sector agnostic and diverse, he couldn’t say no.

On this episode of Accessing the Pipeline, host and McGuireWoods partner Rubin Pusha III welcomes Sly, who recently was promoted from principal to partner at Avante Capital Partners, a woman- and minority-owned, lower middle market private credit firm. While Avante’s debt and equity investments span different industries, Sly particularly discusses the company’s success in the food and beverage sector, which seems to be a recession-proof industry.

Sly also discusses Avante’s goals for investments. Generally credit-focused, Avante looks for companies that provide good downside protection, a competitive advantage, diversification in its customer base and its vendor base, and stable and strong margins. For Sly, one of Avante’s biggest draws is its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Avante strives to invest in a diverse ecosystem of the future.

Tune in to hear Sly talk about trends in sectors, how other investors can make the right deals for themselves, and how putting your money where your mouth is really pays off. 

Featured Guest

Name: Sylvester “Sly” Burley

What he does: As a Partner at Avante Capital Partners, Sly identifies, underwrites, executes and manages investment opportunities. Sly has over twelve years of investing experience, across both private equity and private credit.

Company: Avante Capital Partners

Where to find Sly: LinkedIn

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This podcast was recorded and is being made available by McGuireWoods for informational purposes only. By accessing this podcast, you acknowledge that McGuireWoods makes no warranty, guarantee or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in the podcast. The views, information or opinions expressed during this podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect those of McGuireWoods. This podcast should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your state and should not be construed as an offer to make or consider any investment or course of action.

This is Accessing the Pipeline, a podcast for Black professionals in private equity and finance, brought to you by McGuireWoods. Join host Rubin Pusha III as he welcomes special guests offering insights into access and capital, deal making, accelerating portfolio optimization, and developing relationships among Black professionals in the private equity industry. Tune in to access the possibilities.

Welcome to the next installment of Accessing the Pipeline. This is your host, Rubin Pusha, partner at McGuireWoods in the Chicago office. Please join me in welcoming our guest, Sly Burley, who's a partner at Avante Capital Partners, recent promotion from principal to partner. So huge congrats to you on that front. Sly is based in Los Angeles, California, so good to have you with us today. If you're all set, let's just jump right in. Yeah,

No, happy to. Thanks, Rubin. Super excited to be here and partake in this dialogue and yeah, let's get started.

All right, well in true Accessing the Pipeline form, I think it's really helpful to get as much background as we can before we start getting into the meat of the conversation. And so if you wouldn't mind just sharing with us a little bit about your academic and professional background leading up to your current role at Avante.

Yeah, no, happy to. So I studied Applied Math and Economics at Harvard University and to be candid, when I was there, I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do, but I did know things that I liked. So I was really analytical. I enjoy kind of fast-paced collaborative environments and so a little bit of this was peer pressure, but kind of finding out about finance as a vertical where you could apply a lot of those analytical skills but then also be able to drive value creation and kind of see it manifested in a tangible way. That was something that I was really drawn to. So my first job out of undergraduate was investment banking, which is a well-trodden path, of course. I was in New York at JP Morgan and the natural resources group, so I specifically covered power and utility companies providing advisory services, everything from capital raising, M and A, et cetera.

I did that for a couple years and then transitioned to the buy side where I worked at both large cap as well as mid-market energy and infrastructure focused private equity firms. So the next job after JP Morgan was at a firm called Riverstone Holdings and I was focused on making investments in the oil and gas space as well as the midstream vertical. From there, and that was a two year associate program. I then transitioned to a firm called Basalt Infrastructure Partners where I had the chance to kind of expand the sector, focus a little bit to also look at renewables. And so I've got my feet wet in that space and then from there worked at Bregal Energy where I had the chance to do both energy as well as infrastructure deals. But at that point I had been about eight, nine years in the energy world as an investor and it kind of dawned upon me that I wanted to not be a one trick pony.

I wanted to get some exposure to industry verticals outside of just energy and infrastructure. So that was part of the impetus for me at that stage of my career to look for new opportunities. And fortunately for me, I came across the Avante folks and it was just a really good fit and I can get more into that about some of the exciting kind of cultural aspects of our firm. But at that point in time, I was looking to kind of broaden the sector focus as well as get a little bit more experience investing across the capital stack.

Most of my experience at that point had been private equity, so when I saw the opportunity to join a private credit platform that was sector agnostic as well as kind of invest more down market than what I was used to, I kind of pounced on the opportunity. And for me, I'd always kind of abided by the principle of, it's good sometimes in life to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And so at that point in my life, having done kind of a 180, I had the benefit of hindsight, it's been a really good transition. I basically moved to Los Angeles in 2019, joined Avante as a vice president, and then I've been with the firm for a little over four and a half years and currently a partner. So that's a little bit about my life story.

I appreciate you sharing those details. I think that's a good lead into giving us a quick elevator spiel about Avante Capital. I know you've already alluded to the fact that you guys play in the private credit space, but I know that the firm does so much and is so important to the private equity ecosystem in particular for women and minorities, and so it'd be great to hear a little bit about that.

Yeah, no, happy to. So we are a woman and minority owned lower middle market private credit firm. So we primarily make debt and equity investments in lower middle market companies that span across different industries, be it healthcare, food and beverage, business services, et cetera. Our investments from a ticket size perspective range from seven million on the low end up to 45 million on any single deal. And we're looking at companies that are between three and 20 million of EBITDA. We oftentimes partner with private equity firms to support their leverage buyouts of these companies, but we also partner with independent sponsors, entrepreneurs, management teams to also provide growth capital, acquisition capital, whatever it may be. It's pretty situation specific.

So we work with both traditional private equity firms as well as more non-traditional sponsor sources, be it family offices, independent sponsors, et cetera. And I would say we're pretty credit focused. What I mean by that, we're very focused on finding companies that obviously provide good downside protection and we look at that through the lens of, does the company have a defensible moat, competitive advantage? Does it have diversification in it's customer base and its vendor base in terms of the channels for go-to market? And really looking for companies that have stable and strong margins. And so those are some of the attributes we'll look for in our investments.

Alluded to this already in the information you just gave us, but in a lot of ways private credit and private equity are symbiotic. And I know you mentioned you just work with independent sponsors, you work with true PE buyout focused funds, but could you kind of dig a little bit deeper and really talk about how those two dovetail and how they might work together on a particular deal?

Yeah, no, happy to. And I think having done both private equity and private credit, I think somewhat uniquely positioned to provide some insights on that. The way I kind of think about it is that the two have a very symbiotic relationship. They really go hand in hand. Some of our best investments are ones where we work very closely hand in hand collaborating with the private equity firms to figure out ways to drive value creation post-investment. And so what we're often doing for private equity firms is we're helping them, we're supporting them in acquiring a business by providing debt, and we also provide minority equity, which creates really nice alignment with private equity firms, because not just focused on downside protection. We're aligned with the private equity firm in terms of figuring out how do you drive growth at this business. And so by providing both debt and equity, it creates really nice alignment with the private equity firm.

The other thing I would also bring up is we had kind of a banking crisis earlier this year and it's led to regional commercial banks pulling back a bit in the lower and middle market in terms of lending activity. So it's really created an opportunity for non-bank direct lenders such as an Avante to really kind of come in and fill that void, obviously provide capital for these transactions, but also really be a flexible creative partner to private equity firms. Oftentimes as we know, when you make an investment, it doesn't necessarily go up and to the right immediately in the lower middle market particularly, you have a lot of founder own businesses that have not yet been professionalized. And so one of the ways we work really well with private equity firms is we provide a lot of flexibility as it relates to the value creation plan.

So whereas banks may be a little tighter on cushions or maybe not give as much credit for things for various EBITDA adjustments or add-backs, that's something where we can shine in particular by being that kind of flexible source of capital, thinking with a longer term lens and really helping to kind of accommodate that J curve that you can often see at the beginning an investment. Maybe the first one to four quarters, you're investing in SGNA, you're building out the corporate infrastructure. So to have a partner that is flexible and accommodating on that front is really critical. And so I think we work really well with private equity firms. We like that alignment and we're really there to really just be another partner.

Appreciate that. I think that for the less experienced investor, particularly some of the independent sponsors that are looking to do their first deal, what would you tell them about the way they ought to look at the deal and their ability to leverage debt and equity to get the most value out of their target investment?

Yeah, no, that's a really good question. I think number one is being very crystal clear on the value add that an independent sponsor's providing to the transaction. And that could be a number of things, that could be sourcing or originating a below market multiple deals. So as an independent sponsor, you might have found a deal that could have gone for seven or eight times, but you were able to get it under LOI for five or six times as an example of one of the aspects of [inaudible 00:10:09] and the independent sponsor. So I think number one is being super crystal clear on your role in driving that value creation. How are you going to add value post-close? What's your specific role? Being very clear about that I think really helps the other stakeholders both on the debt and equity side. So that's number one. I think secondarily is obviously in the investment thesis, really stress testing the different facets of that investment thesis and showing that you're very thoughtful around that.

What you want to see as a seasoned investor is someone who has the ability to really challenge inherent biases. And so when you go into a deal, you may think one thing, but then as you're kind of doing diligence, you really want to stress test, probe it, challenge it, make sure that that thesis or that assumption you're holding really stands up. So the more you can do that and validate that work, I think the more you're going to get both debt and equity stakeholders comfortable with that investment. And then thirdly, I think having just flexibility, and that's one of the things that is challenging particularly for first time independent sponsors is one, it's a little bit of an uphill battle because you're always going to run up against, hey, do you have a track record? Have you done this before? That's just something you're going to have to navigate. But I think it's important to be flexible in terms of structure, the types of groups you speak to, casting a bit of a wide net to really figure out, hey, how do I get that kind of first deal done is pretty imperative.

That's awesome. I appreciate the nuances of being flexible on both structure and what you thought was going to be the mix of equity and debt and just really trying to play on the different pressure points to add the most value to the deal in a way that's still attractive to the capital providers, be they debt or equity that you're trying to bring to the table. I think those are really, really important points. Pivoting a little bit, I wanted to spend some time talking about one of the industries, I won't characterize it as being hot for Avante right now, but I know that you all have done a few deals in the food and beverage space.

And it seems that COVID kind ushered us into an area where in 2021 capital raised and deployed in the food and beverage industry across various segments was at an all time high. And although those numbers are down just a little bit, food and beverage seems to be here to stay. It seems to be somewhat recession proof despite inflation and supply chain issues. What is it about the food and beverage industry that's so attractive to you as an investor?

Yeah, it's a great question, Rubin. So we had the benefit of investing, I think in a more kind of normalized environment coming out of COVID, because COVID was certainly an aberration in terms of there was a massive kind of pull forward of demand in the sector. So we did two recent deals and kind of had the benefit of seeing some of that normalization take place. But in terms of the sector, one of the reasons we're really drawn to it is that it has a lot of the attributes that make for a strong credit. The first thing we always look for is, do you have stable demand patterns? For both the businesses that we looked at, they're selling products that are lower ticket sizes, appealing to multiple demographic groups. We really wanted to tease out based on where we are in the cycle, is the demand side of the equation going to remain intact?

And so that was kind of one of the first things we looked into was just, hey, we're heading into an environment where the consumer may be a bit more pressured, whether it's slightly higher unemployment, you've got student loan payments coming back. So we're really trying to figure out, hey, will the consumer, even if they're challenged, will the demand pattern still be relatively stable against that backdrop, that was kind of the number one thing we looked at and that's one of the things we were drawn to was this notion that we didn't feel like the consumers were going to trade down necessarily. Now, a family of four during a recessionary environment, you may, instead of eating out twice a week at a steakhouse, you may decide, hey, I'm going to eat out maybe none or one time a week and we're going to cook at home.

So we like that aspect of you're protected in a recessionary environment where folks are probably more inclined to purchase some of the products from both these companies at home. That was kind of a nice aspect and we didn't really see the whole hey substitution or trading down as prominent in both businesses we saw. So that's part of it. I think the other aspect we like was that there were still some embedded growth opportunities, organic growth opportunities in particular. So when you have this kind of mouse trap where you've got good downside protection, but you've got really nice visibility to growth, that's kind of a sweet spot for us where it's like, okay, we feel good about this, not losing money on the downside, but then really the question is, how are we going to drive growth? And there's a myriad opportunities from both an organic as well as inorganic standpoint to materialize some of that growth.

For example, in one of the two businesses, one of the key value creation initiatives is to expand the channels that the company sells into. So right now for one of the companies, they're selling predominantly into more ethnic mom and pop grocery stores. Part of the growth thesis is let's get you into more mainstream channels, be it club like a Costco or a Sam's Club, or get you into more mainstream retailers such like a Kroger's or Albertsons. So part of the thesis there was, look, we could really expand the addressable market, really drive organic growth by getting you into more channels. So we really like that. The other aspect of it too is from an operational execution perspective, there's some interesting things you can do to drive margin enhancement as you're thinking about facilities and manufacturing facilities, one of the constant things you're thinking through is one, capacity, making sure that hey, you have enough capacity to meet your growth plan.

And then also being thoughtful around that volume production. Are there ways to incorporate automation where you can produce more units more effectively, more cost effectively? It also helps with things like labor. Maybe you don't need as many folks, because as you know for some of these businesses, labor retention is a constant challenge. It's kind of inherent to the space. And so to the extent you can incorporate automation, those are ways that you can drive some embedded growth. So obviously I can speak at length on some of the various initiatives, but that's a flavor of how we're thinking about the investments in this space.

Yeah, we mentioned earlier you guys have done some recent deals in the space. I mean, are you able to talk briefly about, and high level of course, about two of the deals that you recently closed in the food of beverage industry?

Yeah, no, happy to. And I think it's nice in that we've got a slightly different deal profile in both. So one was an independent sponsor transaction, and so we're super excited. It's a diverse independent sponsor that we've known for quite some time, and he's a specialist. His firm is a specialist in the food and beverage space. So we really liked the track record, the demonstrated experience in the sector. And the opportunity was around a regional sausage manufacturer that has both branded as well as private label products. It's predominantly smoked or cooked sausage. And we were coming in to support an add-on opportunity to really help this regional platform become super regional and potentially national in its footprint. And we were brought in, we had the opportunity to just lenders kind of in the capital structure. So we had the ability to have a lot more governance than we typically would.

We have a board seat. We saw some pretty decent economics for the opportunity and the ability to really put a lot more equity dollars to work, which was super attractive for us. And so there are companies really stable, up critical mass, it's call it north of between 10 and 20 million of EBITDA, kind of the right size for us as well. And we are pretty excited that hey, stable on the downside, but a multiplicity of value creation initiatives to kind of drive growth going forward. So that's one of the deals. The other deal is also a food manufacturer. It's kind of frozen Asian food, and this is the business that today predominantly sells to kind of Asian mom and pop grocery retail stores. It's been super, super stable. And why we're excited about that deal is we see a real potential for it to diversify its channel mix, get into more mainstream channels.

We're also at that, there's going to be a facility build out that's going to have a lot of automation. And so again, going back to what I was saying earlier, we see some nice opportunities for organic growth just via increased capacity. So both opportunities, I think when we went into it, we really focused one recessionary environment, how are consumer behavior going to change, if at all? And felt really good that in both instances you had a pretty nice kind of baseline. And then of course, looking forward on the growth side of things, what's really that plan to get new customers wallet share expansion with existing customers and continue to broaden the footprint overall?

Nice. That's good to hear the food and beverage industry one, is slightly recession proof and it's like you could go out to eat or you can pivot to go to a grocery store and buy products off the shelf or fresh produce or what have you, but you still got to eat. So it provides, I think a pretty interesting investment opportunity and good to hear that there aren't as many headwinds and it sounds like there are quite a few tailwinds in terms of where the food and beverage industry can go. Switching gears just one last time, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about Avante's efforts in the diversity space.

As you know, McGuireWoods has its women in private equity and Black professionals in private equity initiatives, which I think your firm has been fairly active in the women in PE. You and others have been really active in tapping into the events and thought leadership of the Black professionals in private equity initiatives. And so I wanted to understand that in addition to maximizing returns across multiple industries for investors, what's Avante Capital's task on finding and mentoring the next generation of diverse managers and investors? What role are they playing in that work in the ecosystem?

Yeah, it's a great question, Rubin, and something I on a personal level really resonate with and obviously one of the key reasons that I feel very blessed and fortunate to be at Avante, where we really do harness the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a competitive advantage. I like to often say we walk the walk and not just having the talk around how do we expand access to underserved, underrepresented groups. So at Avante, I would say the first and foremost, I mean our team is diverse, so it kind of starts there. So we have over 85% of our employees are either a woman or a minority, and we kind of hail from all walks of life. And I think that diversity of experiences is a key reason we have really good returns. Because I think we have a culture where we encourage people to speak their minds, we encourage folks not to have groupthink, and we very much love to hear different perspectives.

So it kind of starts there. And then I think the way we kind of thought about it is to whom much is given, much is required. At Avante, we've been fortunate in raising three institutional funds, managing roughly a billion dollars of capital. We have a responsibility to expand access both within our firm, but is also expanding access more broadly in the industry to these underrepresented groups. So I would say from the start, have been try to be leaders in doing so. For example, in 2020 we launched the SBIC industry's first diversity internship, and it started with, I want to say nine interns, six participating SBICs, really successful. Now we're in our fourth year where we have 30 firms participating, 40 diverse interns, and that's been an awesome initiative. First time college students having the chance to secure really highly coveted finance internships, really being the first ones perhaps in their family to be able to work in the industry.

We've been able to facilitate and support those opportunities. So one, I think we think about the funnel into the industry, you want to tackle it earlier on, making sure you're in the top of the funnel in terms of getting women and minorities into the industry is as robust as possible. So that's an example of one of the initiatives is our small business investing scholars program. A couple of the other ones I'd kind of highlight is one, we have a Woman's Operating Network we call it W-O-N, a WON. And that's where we have a database of north of 200 women with C-suite experience or prior board experience. And what we try to do is find ways for them to participate on private equity boards. We want to see more diversity at the board level, and that's an initiative we launched last year and have actually already helped private equity firms actually place some of these female candidates on their actual boards. And so that's another example of an initiative we started to expand access to more groups.

So yeah, it's part of our DNA. We love it. And like I say, the north star certainly is finding good investment opportunities, but I think what we do on the diversity side really feeds into that. From an origination standpoint, execution as well as kind of post-close value creation, we always try to figure out how can we harness the power of DE and I to drive value in those respective stages.

Thanks for sharing a little bit about the most recent deals that you guys have done in the food and beverage space. I think it'd be helpful for those listening in to get a little bit of a flavor of the regulatory overlay that you encounter with respect to those two deals. Could you share a bit about some of the pressure points with diligence in these deals and trying to get them across the finish line?

Yeah, no, happy to, Rubin. So there certainly is regulation as you would imagine. The entity that gets involved, whether it's the USDA, the FDA is partly a function of the type of produce, whether it's frozen or cooked, et cetera. So there is a modest degree of regulation. As you can imagine, food safety is of paramount importance beyond just what the regulatory bodies and having annual certifications and checks around your manufacturing processes, your quality standards. Oftentimes the customers that you sell into will also do their own diligence. And so it's kind of top of mind for most kind of food companies is food safety risk and you really want to be leading edge as it relates to having really good protocols in place. The culture around making sure that you're going above and beyond and not putting yourself in a position where you might have a regulatory infraction. And a lot of that comes down to training, having leadership, a food safety officer, and really driving the whole team, your rank and file as well as your supervisors to all be aligned on adhering to those different protocols that you have in place.

Thanks for sharing a little bit about some of the regulatory concerns when manufacturing or selling food products. We've come to the end of the podcast, and as you may know from watching previous episodes, I always like to end these with a little bit more personal touch in terms of the questions that I ask. And so if you'll bear with me for a few minutes, got a couple of quick rapid fire questions. Feel free to be as candid in your answers as you can. Let me know when you're ready and we'll kick it off.

Yeah, no, let's get fired away.

All right, so question number one, recommend one book that's been transformational in your career.

That's a great question. One of the books I would say is How to Measure Your Life, which is written by Clay Christensen, who's a HBS professor. And this book definitely spoke to me because I think, so one of the key takeaways from the book is high achieving individuals, we tend to kind of overinvest or over index to our careers while underinvesting in relationships. And that definitely spoke to me. I remember earlier on in my career I had a bit of a Spartan view on work. I was like, work above all else, career, success. Those are types of things that we embrace as high achieving individuals and sometimes some of the other things get a little bit de-emphasized, and it's really important that you don't do that, that you do have to invest in those relationships.

They require constant cultivation and even, for example, let's say the state of your relationship with your family and close friends is in a really good spot, you may be led to think, hey, I can put that on the back burner and not continually invest in them and that would actually be a mistake. So you want to make sure that you just have to constantly invest in relationships and that was one of the takeaways from that book. It's like as you think about, hey, how to measure success in your life, it's not, you got to be careful to over index to the career side of the equation.

That's awesome. That's certainly the first time that someone's mentioned that book on the podcast. We've had a couple of repeats, so appreciate that nugget. I'm going to add that to my reading list. Something a little less academic, what cocktail best describes your personality?

That's a great question. I'll probably go with a cocktail that I enjoy drinking and try to figure out if there's a way to tie it to my personality. But I'm a big fan of mojitos. I find them to be, they're easy to drink, they're refreshing, the flavor, and that reflects my personality from the standpoint of I'm a bit adventurous, I'm pretty easygoing, so get along with folks from all walks of life and very much I feel like mojitos are a drink that men and women both like, fairly easy on the palette. So that would probably be the one that I would anchor to.

All right, I enjoy a good mojito. They sound simple or you would think they'd be simple to make on its face, but as you and I both know, not all bartenders are created equal and so sometimes they don't get it right. If you could have dinner with one person dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Oh man, that's a great question too. Man, there's no shortage of folks that I would want to have dinner with dead or alive, but I probably would say the former President Obama. For me, just the fact that he has been able to remain so optimistic and I just want to pick his brain around his ability to stay positive, to really be about his selfless endeavors. He went through a lot, I think was the subject of a lot of trials and tribulations throughout his life, but the fact that he's maintained a very positive, constructive outlook on life is just something I want to learn more about. And again, quite candidly is a pretty charismatic, funny guy as well. So I think the dinner would be enjoyable, but he'd probably be near the top of the list.

High on my list too hard not to live in Chicago and drive past the future site of his presidential library and not think about the opportunity, at least run into him, let alone to be able to sit down and have a nice steak dinner and pick his brain about his outlook on life and all the things he's accomplished and what the table stakes have been for him in terms of maintaining the level of integrity and high character that we've seen him just put on display for multiple decades. It's really cool to also appreciate his optimism, but also to appreciate his relevance. Two terms out of office and he still, I think what he has to say remains relevant to a lot of people. Last question, and you can't cheat and use a nugget of wisdom you shared from the book that you read, which I thought was salient advice, but single best piece of advice you've received from a mentor personally or professionally?

I would say the notion around comparison is the thief of joy, so embrace gratitude. And I think that particularly it probably resonates with listeners on this podcast where I'm sure a lot of folks, we're all ambitious, we're all trying to make an impact, contribute to society, and sometimes it's natural to kind of look to your left and kind of takes stock of how your career is doing or how such and such is going. And I think it's a reminder that there's always going to be, of course, someone that has more, is doing more, and you shouldn't let that get in the way of you being happy with where you're at in life because it's not a race against your peers, but life is ultimately a race to be the best version of yourself.

And so to the extent you can be grateful and embrace gratitude and not compare, I think it goes a long way to bringing about happiness. And so I know earlier on in my life that was something that's easy and particularly in finance to play the comparison game, but when I heard that advice, it certainly was cathartic from the standpoint of relieving some of that mental burden and thinking about life through a different lens.

Yeah, excellent advice. I'm not sure if you're willing to share who gave you that advice, but comparison is the thief of joy. I mean, that may be the title of the podcast. In both the legal profession and private equity, whether it's emerging managers, independent sponsors, or individuals working, you got to run your own race. It looks different for everybody. Success comes at different times for people, and sometimes you've got to make some mistakes in order to learn and grow and set yourself up for that space of success, that space of gratitude, that space where you're now helping other people be successful, those things aren't as enjoyable if you don't get to make some mistakes and bump your head along the way.

Totally.

Thank you, Sly, for being on the podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, Sly Burley, Avante Capital Partners, recently promoted to partner, so congratulations to you and I look forward to continuing to follow your career and all the cool things that you're doing, private equity space.

Awesome. Well, it was a pleasure conversing with you, Rubin, and thanks again for the time. It was awesome.

Awesome.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Accessing the Pipeline. To learn more about today's discussion, please email host Rubin Pusha III at R-P-U-S-H-A @McGuireWoods.com. We'll look forward to hearing from you. This series was recorded and is being made available by McGuireWoods for informational purposes only. By accessing this series, you acknowledge that McGuireWoods makes no warranty, guarantee, or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this installment. The views, information, or opinions expressed are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect those of McGuireWoods. This series should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your state and should not be construed as an offer to make or consider any investment or course of action.