Gulf Coast CEO Forum

presents

Antoine Pupin, Drew Graham and Harvey Vengroff

What Private Equity Investors Expect from a CEO

Sarasota Yacht Club

1100 John Ringling Blvd. | Sarasota, FL 34236

June 13th, 2012

Registration & Social: 7:00am - 7:30am

Breakfast Membership Meeting: 7:30am - 8:00am

Speaker Presentation: 8:00am - 9:00am

If one of your goals is to continue growing your business, say, by acquisition or expanding into new niches or areas, or perhaps finding liquidity to shift your ownership structure, every CEO knows one of the keys to these objectives is access to capital.

Traditional debt financing certainly is an option. So is an infusion of private equity from second-tier and mezzanine financiers and private-equity investors.

In our June CEO Forum, you will hear the insights and advice of three experienced and accomplished entrepreneurs who are hands-on private-equity investors and fund managers that invest in growing companies and their CEOs.

Drew Graham is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Ballast Point Ventures, a St. Petersburg-based venture capital firm with $200 million under management focused on Florida, the Southeast and Texas. Founded a decade ago, Ballast Point provides growth equity capital to rapidly growing private companies with outstanding management teams in areas such as health care, communications, business services, technology and consumer/retail. Prior to Ballast Point, Graham spent six years at South Atlantic Venture Funds in Tampa, Florida’s oldest venture capital and private-equity firm. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Antoine Pupin has been a private-equity investor for 25 years and is Chairman and CEO of First Street Global LLC. Prior to founding First Street Global in Sarasota in 2011, he was Managing Partner of 21 Partners, a global private-equity firm specializing in helping companies grow by acquisitions. During his tenure, funds under management grew from $100 million to $1.5 billion, with investments in 30 mid-size companies with operations in 70 countries and 116 factories, more than 26,000 employees, sales of $4 billion and EBITDA of $450 million. Pupin started his career as an aerospace engineer. A native of France, he holds a graduate degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona.

Harvey Vengroff is founder and chairman of Vengroff Williams Inc., a 50-year-old receivables collections company, with more than $20 billion in assets under management and clients among Fortune 500 companies such as Bank of America, Cisco Systems and Tandem. Vengroff started the firm in New York, learning early on that sometimes overdue customers can be a challenge, as evidenced by the scar on his lower lip. With lessons learned in collections, Vengroff also has been a principal over the past decade in two startup incubators in Sarasota and is always on the lookout for helping finance and mentor startup entrepreneurs.

Come join us for an interview-style, interactive conversation with these three experienced investor-entrepreneurs.