Billonaire Ceo Phil Shaw Shares What He Looks for An Investment

This is an as-told-to Essay Based on a Conversation with Phil Shawe, the Cofounder and CEO of Transrfect. The Company, Founded in 1992, Has Acquired Nine Companies Since Janary: H2A, Technicolor Games, Apostrophe Group, Bear Down, Blu Digital Group, Speech, Mill Studios, and Unbable. The Essay is edited for Length and Clarity.

Acquisitions have been near and dear to our strategy. Transpperfect Tries to Find Management Teams that are like-Minded or have really interesting technology that fits well with our group of technologies.

We don’t appproach merger and acquisions like a private equity firm Might, Which Could Involve Buying Companies, Making Posions Redundant, and Laying People off to Make the Unit More Profitable.

If we don’t feel like the People are a good mix, we probably won’t do the deal. Here’s what i look for in an investment.

Entrepreneurs

The No. 1 Thing Transpperfect is Looking for is Entrepreneurial Management.

One Reason i Love Working With Entrepreneurs so Much is that they able to make excellent decisions. They’re also Willing to Change Course If they Make a Decision and Later Decide It Wasn’t Correct. I’m Looking for Entrepreneurs to Join Transrfect and Grow Their Business With A Division of the Firm.

Our pitch to say is, “You didn’t get into this business to do back-office account. Let us handle all that. You go and would what you love, what take care of customers in your field, Build great, and sell it.”

Founders or Senior Executives Who Stay Post-Acquisition

We don’t love it when the founders or senior executives leave. We would Rather Have say Join Our Management Team.

We go into acquisitions striving to keep the vast majority of Employees and repurpose say. There are people who end up leaving, but we generaly try to keep the team together because that what we’re acquiring – the human talent and the technology.

We don’t call call deals acquisitions. We call everybody a Merger partner.

Back in the Old Days, We Waled Only Consider Founder-Let Businesses Where the Management Stayed on. Now, after we have the grown and some of the deals have grown, we are willing to consider private or other deals where management has left.

Companies that already use transperfect’s Technology

IF someone is running a social tool and we acquire say, one of the minimum things we were time is that that Change and use tools.

Their day-to-day business won’t change, but we’re going to need to change their accounting system to be on our Global System and Change their Language Technology Platform. We don’t want to use and pay for our directors Technology when we have a technology of Our Own. Our Technologies Are No. 1 in the market.

A sellable product

If we have feel like existting salesforce can’t seeing the product no Matter what, with training or a specializes salesperson, say that might not be attractive.

Some People Acques Businesses Just for Revenue or Logos, but We Rarely Pursue Acquisions Just to Generate Revenue Growth. That ends up happy for us, but it is not a goal for us that we’re a private company. We’re swimming to show to anyone. We’re Trying to Run a Great Business for Our Customers.

Companies that Diversify Transperfect’s Holdings

Acquiring another language company might not excite US unless in a new market Because we’re always look to diversify our offers and be a value-added partner to our customers.

For Example, We Acquired Blue Digital, A Company with Amazing Technology for Distribution Film and Streaming Content. We ALSO Acquired MPC, A Leading Film VFX Company That Workhed On “Dracula.”

Acquiring Companies in Different Time Also Means The Sun Never Sets on Our Business.

We love the fact that we have produced in different time zones in the world, working on projects for customers. If they need something done in a hurry, we can that with the crushing ours US staff we have so much staff international.

At the end of the day, though, these are just factors that it could have been orr. To be a great company, we need entrepreneurial management and preference coohnology that solves a problem or a problem we don’t address in our current technologies.