Bankers Capital International

In the competitive world of capital acquisition, alternative funding strategies, and M&A transactions, the traditional investment banker’s playbook includes knowledge of and relationships with capital sources, an intimate understanding of the capital stack and how it differs among clients, fluency with valuation techniques and industry-based variations, and the experience required to migrate clients through the perilous and often fickle road to capital and/or business combinations. Bankers Capital International takes investment banking a step further, however, by integrating the firm’s unique advisory platform with client-management, creating a specifically client-tailored “deal team”, positioned to develop and test long-term growth objectives, and to apply “long-game” strategies where most productive. The platform implemented by Bankers Capital International is a unique blend of (a) investment bankers, skilled in capital origination, capital placement, corporate management, mergers, acquisitions, and strategic positioning, and (b) senior professionals from the client’s industry, skilled in the business and competitive matters that the client handles on a routine basis. The firm’s platform approach creates a deep and critically required understanding of the client from which Bankers Capital International then helps to craft and implement both short term and long-term strategies for client succuss.

The job of Bankers Capital International, according to its founder and chief architect, Todd M. DeMatteo, is to achieve results that the client cannot achieve for itself, and so its services are a cross-section of private placements of capital (typically $10 million to $500 million), balance sheet refinancing (no limits), recapitalizations (no limits), mergers and acquisitions (typically $20 million to no limit on the top side), strategic advisory, and strategic restructuring, both for organic and inorganic growth. And, because the “deal-team” is drawn from a platform of investment bankers and senior advisors, Bankers Capital International tailors the skill set required to fit the client’s needs, and then modifies the skill set as the client grows and needs change, without having to reeducate the support function or re-acquaint the support function and the client.

To maintain its dexterity, Bankers Capital International is organized as part of a platform comprised of a number of similarly situated sister-companies on the same level of organization, all held by BCI Financial.

Holdings, LLC, a Delaware corporation. Each company is functionally and legally separated from the others, supervised by a dedicated regulatory compliance professional. Additionally, the securities professionals are purposefully registered with and supervised by an affiliated, third-party company, Yosemite Execution Partners Inc., a registered broker-dealer and member of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”). Yosemite’s CEO, William Belhumeur, is a Managing Director of Bankers Capital International and is a member of the firm’s Commitment Committee, chartered with the mandate to screen investment banking clients and FINRA-transactions.

Given the nature of the platform, the firm’s investment bankers are typically industry-agnostic, focused on capital origination and placement, business combinations and reorganizations, and strategic positioning. The investment bankers come from varied professions and industries, including law and senior corporate management, and are each focused on securities-related transactions. Unlike Bankers Capital International, the sister-companies on the platform are industry specific and provide industry-focused, non-securities related advice to each of their clients. By maintaining skill-sets in discrete, individual silos, Bankers Capital International is able to select and configure deal-teams specifically responsive to client needs, and by keeping the organizational platform flat, Bankers Capital International can quickly reorder skills as client needs and environmental circumstances change. Moreover, by segregating Bankers Capital International and the broker-dealer away from its sister companies, Bankers Capital can better maintain regulatory compliance for itself and its registered professionals.

“The BCI platform provides the optimum mix of professional skills, expertise, and technology found at large firms combined with the speed, flexibility, and client-proximate responsiveness provided by small firms,” says Todd M. DeMatteo, senior executive director at Bankers Capital International, and the managing member of BCI Financial Holdings.

The Origins of the Platform

DeMatteo, with over 30 years of experience running numerous privately held and publicly traded companies, recognized that competent investment banking requires integration of a variety of services and skill sets, both securities-oriented and industry-specific.

In his eight-year tenure at Dominick and Dominick LLC, DeMatteo experimented with the idea of combining investment banking and non-financial services into a seamless team that could provide clients with necessary, inter-discipline expertise, eliminating incongruities that often occur among and between various consulting companies on the same project. DeMatteo tested many philosophies to build a platform comprised of legally separate, industry specific silos under a common parent and management team. He reasoned that this approach would provide clients with requisite support through a matching of skills from various sister-companies on the same platform, while at the same time maintaining regulatory compliance by isolating registered securities professionals through a FINRA-member broker-dealer.

In January 2017, DeMatteo launched BCI Financial Holdings LLC, where he translated his philosophies into practical applications by creating a platform that provides clients with investment banking proficiency under Bankers Capital International and/or significant industry-targeted expertise under one or more, separate sister companies. The platform is supported by robust technology, proprietary and externally purchased data bases, an internal support team, and competent internal procedures. The combination of platform skills, expertise, knowledge and support, typically provides clients with a more comprehensive, business-integrated solution to its capital and strategic combination needs. Moreover, the collective relationships of members on the platform also provides clients with a significantly broader and more relevant reach of prospective industry contacts and connections. The platform is a holistic approach to problem solving and wealth creation.

“We provide our services as though we were the principal, and the advice that we give our clients is the advice that we would give to ourselves, irrespective of expediency or fee structure,” says DeMatteo.
The organizational structure of the platform can be compared to a flat pyramid, with BCI Financial Holdings LLC occupying the top level. Its subsidiaries are positioned below, each specializing in specific industries, allowing clients to obtain actionable insights into the intricate details of each transaction. By way of example, BCI Life Sciences LLC (https:// bcilifescienceadvisors.com/en/ ) specializes in business development and management matters associated with life science, healthcare, pharmaceutical, biotech, and life science-related sectors. BCI Life Sciences is comprised of founders, presidents, CEOs, COOs, CFOs and senior sales professionals from large multinational organizations and emerging healthcare companies in the United States and abroad. The firm leverages the expertise of these professionals, advising its clients on every stage of the growth process, including business analysis, communications, government and agency interface, licensing, in-house and outsourced manufacturing, vendor optimization, distribution, regulatory compliance and global network development. Likewise, BCI Commercial Properties focuses on commercial real estate development and acquisitions, and up until Covid, BCI AsiaPacific focused on Asia-based clients, while BCI Gaming and Hospitality focused on non-securities transactions in the travel and tourism industry.

Drawing from this platform of multi-discipline experience, knowledge and skills, Bankers Capital International is able to provide its clients with solutions and strategies that are not always intuitive or conventional.

The Strength of Preparation

Bankers Capital International, in combination with each applicable sister company, thoroughly assesses the potential client, its business and its desired objectives before proposing engagement. This assessment includes a competent understanding of the company’s current status and an initial determination of whether the company’s aspirations are reasonably supported by its operations, financials, and infrastructure. Many times, this learning and vetting process entails pre-engagement calls to prospective strategic and/or capital partners, the Exchanges and/or regulators, with client’ approval, to confirm the preliminary read of the company’s situation and the initial viability of the prospective assignment.

Bankers Capital declines the majority of transactions it reviews, sometimes because client’ objectives are not realistic based on its stage of development, sometimes because something in the client’ history or trajectory preempts the path that it is on, and sometimes because the client’ business and the market within which Bankers Capital work are not compatible. In such times, Bankers Capital shares any market information obtained, provides remedial measures to consider, and/ or makes introductions to other firms where a fit may be more comfortable.Bankers Capital believes that client engagement, subsequent to the initial learning and vetting process, commences on a firm, stable foundation with a clear understanding of direction and trajectory. Bankers Capital also notes that deal preparation and a firm understanding of the client-company expedites the transaction matching process and fosters credibility in transaction-related discussions, particularly among the institutional investors with whom Bankers Capital International works.

“At Bankers Capital International, we purposefully invest time and resources on the front end to understand client needs, think through prospective strategies, and confirm concurrence with the general approach, rather than signing up a client and marching off to market with a strategy that eventually may not succeed,”

At Bankers Capital International, the deal team is always led by a senior investment banker who determines the size and specific talents of the team members. This approach combines the expertise of financial services professionals and industry specialists to provide clients with a comprehensive advisory service that goes beyond traditional financial services, offering a holistic perspective. The team is supported by a robust technology platform, customized database(s), and global connectivity, enabling Bankers Capital to globally conduct its business any time of the day or night. Moreover, senior bankers are empowered to make decisions at the client-level, supported by internal monitoring and compliance supervision. The result is a fast and efficient process that allows the client and Bankers Capital International to excel in today’s competitive business landscape.

The firm has a number of illustrative client studies, and points to an aggregator of dairy farms as a prime example of the firm’s investment banking philosophy. In 2018, the prospective client contacted Bankers Capital International to help vet a current plan to offer the company’s common stock securities to the public by way of IPO or SPAC-merger. Bankers Capital reviewed the company’s financial position, infrastructure, growth strategy, market conditions, and forecasts, recommending that the prospective client pause its “going public” activities in order to create a broader internal base and a more encompassing growth strategy, thereby increasing the viability of a subsequent going public event at a more opportune time. The client agreed and over the next three years the client and Bankers Capital International, in deal team formation, built and implemented a global dairy-products strategy based on ownership and management of the vertical supply chain between tillable farmland and branded dairy products on store shelves. The deal team applied its “long-game” strategies, resulting in dramatically increased farm size, milk production, profitably, distribution, and quality of financial reporting. The deal team also rebalanced the client’s balance sheet by moving debt-load away from local commercial lenders and consolidating it as term and working capital lines with two of the top five agriculture-lenders in the United States, one of which is the largest in the world. The company is now properly positioned to attract and support an underwriter as it resumes its path to a listing on Nasdaq or NYSE. DeMatteo said that “we could have easily taken the initial advisory fee and moved to the next client in 2018, but that would have been a disservice to the client and to its shareholders”.

The Trajectory of Global Growth

Bankers Capital International places significant importance on long term relationships with its clients and with the bandwidth of institutional investors with whom it deals. Through solid preparation, meaningful deal-team support, and ongoing transaction validation, Bankers Capital International has built a credible reputation in the financial services community. The firm continuously seeks to add high quality professionals to its team and sister companies, and to find ways to broaden its platform strategy. As the firm continues to expand its services and unique organizational approach to international markets, Bankers Capital International will eventually partner with an international financial services firm seeking an immediate entry to the US capital markets through a reputable, turnkey business partner. The strategy would be to cross-leverage investment banking relationships among international communities and investors, to cross-pollinate transactions among financial services professionals, and to broaden the revenue base with a sales desk, research and additional industry-specific sister companies, all on a common, international platform with equal access to key capital markets around the world.