PBS Interviewer

Some businessmen just have a knack for success: they know how to create it, grow it, manage it and even snatch it back from the brink of failure. Bob welcomes two-time Entrepreneur of the Year Bud Kirchner, an Alabama venture capitalist credited with having that golden touch. Kirchner has dedicated his career to helping companies achieve their potential by parachuting in his management team to tighten operations and generate momentum. Yet he may well have found his most satisfying work in social entrepreneurship, developing the Hidden Angel Foundation in memory of his son. It offers Multi-Sensory Environments (MSEs) so that disabled individuals can stimulate brain activity and better engage with the world around them. Through Kirchner’s efforts, we see how the entrepreneurial spirit pays dividends in so many more ways than just what appears on the balance sheet.

Robert Scully

Concentra Financial Services Association

“In less than one year, Kirchner brought both its expertise and experience to bear on the company and today we are seeing the positive results of their work. With the assistance of Kirchner, the company has seen a substantial improvement in both gross margin and EBITDA, in part because of improved production practises and a reduction in overall costs. This coupled with a significant reduction in excess inventory has allowed the company to pay down a large portion of its senior debt.”

Sheryl Hilash AVP Corporate Banking

Susquehanna Growth Equity

“Kirchner was able to step into a complicated situation involving operational problems, management issues and differing agendas amongst investors and develop a comprehensive, practical “Turnaround” plan. … provided us with an experienced turnaround CEO who immediately took charge of a very demanding situation and rapidly implemented a number of measures….. Kirchner was able to maintain the existing revenue level, improve gross margins and regain investor confidence. Over the course of a year, the company was stabilized and ultimately was able to successfully go public on the AIM exchange representing a significant increase in value. We were impressed with the work Kirchner provided and would use them again without hesitation.”

Vincenzo La Ruffa

Dogwood Equity

“I engaged Kirchner and Company (KCI) to undertake a detailed assessment of the operations of one of our portfolio companies (approximately $80M in revenues) engaged in a manufacturing and distribution business. I thought their bottoms-up operational approach might yield more insight than hiring the usual consultants with domain expertise and I was right. KCI quickly built rapport with a number of personnel at all levels of the company and unearthed a significant number of candid and detailed facts and issues which were clearly holding the company back. They made this information available over the course of the engagement and to my pleasant surprise, sought to make or facilitate a number of positive changes in a number of operational areas that were outside of their mandate. It was clear that KCI had the expertise to separate fact from fiction and their sometimes brutally candid comments were a breath of fresh air that one typically does not find with “consultants.” What was the most remarkable to me was that during KCI’s engagement, third party groups were spending several hundred thousand dollars on due diligence in connection with another initiative and none of those high paid consultants found any of the issues and concerns that KCI surfaced, I would recommend KCI without reservation and am convinced the operational approach is superior to the domain expertise model.”

Stephen W. Buchanan, General Partner

AnyWare Group Inc.

Kirchner Transition Management has an impressive team that very quickly assessed our Company and came up with solid recommendations for the future, including restructuring the staff and providing a path to a successful exit strategy.  We were so impressed with their work that we engaged them again to work with the management team to implement a restructuring plan that resulted in the Company completing a financing round (in a tough market) in late 2008.

Gerry Verner, Chief Executive Officer

Maveron LLC

“Maveron first worked with Kirchner and Company on the sale of a software company in our portfolio. They ran a first class process (in a difficult situation) and successfully closed a deal in six months after bringing three offers to the table, including one from a party that had previously passed. After almost 10 years in the venture capital business, I can say this was the first time an investment bank exceeded my expectations”

Dan Levitan, Co-Founder

Truition Inc.

Kirchner and Company did an excellent job advising us on the sale of our SaaS business, leading to a solid exit during what was perhaps the worst economic climate to sell a company in 7 decades.  The team impressed us with both their expertise in the process, something I rarely say about ibanks, and the deep knowledge they developed of the buyer.  This proved to be instrumental in ensuring the deal actually got over the finish line with a structure that was very attractive to us as sellers.

Bill Wignall, CEO

VG Partners

This is the first time I’ve ever sold a company to a buyer that wasn’t already aware and partnered with the company – which often has me questioning the value of M&A services. Kirchner brought the buyer to the table and got it closed. They worked well in the mgmt/SH dynamics and I appreciate it. I’m rarely happy paying service fees, but Kirchner deserved every dollar.

Peter Carrescia

Bioriginal

“The Kirchner team provided a significant return on their fee in year 1 with hands on management.

Key actions were:

• A detailed review of the company, identified key management and strategic issues with go forward options.
• Followed up on assessment with action plans to: Focus management on cash and profit improvement including cash generation through redundant asset sales, margin improvement through product rationalization and cost reduction through head count cuts.
• Provided key lenders with confidence in debt reduction plan so that loans would not be pulled.
• Set new strategic goals to regenerate growth.
• Provided hands-on support from the plant operations level to discussions with senior lender.”

Joe Vidal – CEO

Milcom Venture Partners

We engaged the Kirchner Group to provide interim CEO support to address a challenging operational and management situation in one of our cleantech portfolio companies.  I was pleased with the outcome of the engagement since the interim CEO very rapidly came up to speed and became effective in directing the company, including the resolution of some difficult operational issues involving friction between staff members threatening to break up the team at a critical time.  I was impressed with the speed at which he became acquainted with the company’s chemical engineering technology.  He applied his broad technical and people-management skills to deal with the issues, maintaining integrity of the team, as well as suggesting improvements to day-to-day operations.  In all – he kept the company on track in difficult circumstances for several months during which the Board was able to hire a permanent CEO to fill the lead role. I would be happy to engage the Kirchner Group again should an interim management situation arise.

John Trbovich, General Partner