Laurie Clark, President and CEO of Smarten Up Institute, was invited as a Guest Speaker to the Small Dealers Symposium held by IIAC on September14th at the Toronto Board of Trade. The Symposium’s timely topic of “Strategies for Success in the Financial World” was a rare occasion to bring together small dealers and industry leader’s offering their perspectives on the opportunities and issues faced in today’s tumultuous environment. The event was well attended and audience engagement attested to a successful day.

Stan Deudney, President and Founder of Transatron Systems and Instructor for Smarten Up teamed with Laurie Clark to lead an insightful discussion on “Operational Considerations in Planning/Execution of a Strategic Transaction”. With an audience highly concentrated with sales professionals, the topic of operational considerations may have seemed a conflict to their main business focus on the “cash out position” as expressed by one sales professional.

Laurie’s response – “Yes, however, let’s give you the cash out position when you don’t focus on these items. Milan worked on a deal recently that is worth millions. After the paperwork was completed and the deal closed, there were several items discovered in the day to day operation of the business that were not:

a) disclosed fully;
b) did not meet compliance standards;
c) technically difficult and made no sense.

The contract penalties and clawbacks were invoked. Sale price was now 50% less than original

After a pause in thought, the response from the sales professional “That’s very important”.

The event was moderated by Bill Packham of Hampton Securities Limited and included the additional guest speakers and topics:

State of the Industry - Ian Russell (IIAC) and Earl Biederman (Investor Economics)

Setting Your Firm up for Success - George Hartman (Market Logics Inc.), Victor Toth (Insight Objects Inc.)

Strategic Transactions - Milan Roy (Deloitte), Kish Kapoor (Wellington West), and Neil Selfe (GMP)

US Experience – Canadian Counterpoint Kim Tillotson-Fleming (Hefren Tillotson), Bill Pictor, (Trubee Collins & Co.) David Williams (First Clearing). Effect of 2008 Crisis on US Small/Regional Firms

Smarten Up Institute enthusiastically supports such events that afford the opportunity for the participants in the Canadian Securities industry to gather together in a positive, engaging environment that solicits forward thinking.