Victoria Fox, managing director, Emory & Co., LLC
Name: Victoria L. Fox
Title: Managing Director
Company: Emory & Co., LLC
City of Residence: Milwaukee (downtown)
How does the market look to you? We just closed our sixth deal of this year, which was the sale of Milwaukee Gear to a private equity group. This brings our total transaction value of closed deals this year to over $175 million, which is a record year for us. There are still a lot of buyers with a lot money out there looking for deals. Our clients tend to be profitable, growing companies in unique niche markets, that still sell for solid prices. We have not yet seen the slow down that many people are expecting.
What are you working on now? I’m working on closing three more deals this year. One is the sale of a specialty printer, one is the sale of an IT company that is under letter of intent and one is an acquisition of a food company for a French client.
What was the best deal you’ve been involved in? There have been so many fun deals over the years. What amazes me the most is working with high caliber entrepreneurs who have identified an underserved niche and have found a way to be more successful and profitable than their industry peers. It is very satisfying to help them convert their hard work into liquidity. Some of my favorite deals have involved international travel, like a divestiture we did for Rockwell Automation, or the acquisition searches we’re doing for European clients.
What was the funniest or most interesting moment of your career? Each deal has its own interesting moments, most of which I cannot disclose but make for very entertaining memories for our team. One of the more interesting moments in my career was when I joined Emory to build an M&A practice. It has been a lot of hard work, but has also been very rewarding.
