Looking Back provides the reader with an over the shoulder look at the life of a kid from Brooklyn and how he literally boot-strapped his way through the world of finance using leverage to purchase businesses and how those experiences prepared him for a career as a Turnaround Management Consultant advising business owners in distressed situations.
It is rich in real world lessons learned as it follows the author's life progressing from his roots to his years as a Price Waterhouse & Co. CPA and his subsequent experiences as an entrepreneur using leverage to acquire operating businesses eventually leading to a 22-year career as a Turnaround Management Consultant detailing observations gained from a myriad of assignments and approaches to business issues.
The book describes in detail how, as a principal, he originated the fully leveraged acquisition of six companies, and additional acquisition "bolt-ons" to existing platforms in the middle market. Each had their own unique challenges. All were in the mature phase of their product lives. The sellers in most cases were either in financial trouble or were at the end of their careers without succession plans.
It is written in the first person by the author that recently retired and describes the methods used to leverage the assets of both the companies acquired and clients he advised. The primary objective of writing the book was to provide a legacy for his six grandsons and a firsthand awareness of what life is like in the real world and some lessons on how to avoid missteps.
This book is a must read for students or anyone involved in the acquisition or management of middle market companies. It is a chronicle of real-life business experiences that pulls back the curtain on the life of a boot strapping executive dealing in highly leveraged situations and the unscrupulous characters he meets along the way.