尼克?萊帕德：華爾街的“救急”專家

????河濱資本公司（Riverside）首席運營官帕姆?亨德里克森近來在做一份未來五年公司的運營預算，但卻發現她急需人手。這家私募股權投資公司在全球四大洲擁有超過80個分公司，總投資額高達32億美元。帕姆手下的核心員工，一個在休產假，另一個剛剛離職，導致她現在人手嚴重不足，但這份工作卻又需要有豐富金融建模經驗的員工來做。心急火燎之中，她撥通了尼克?萊帕德的電話?！耙坏┯龅浇鹑诜治龇矫娴膯栴}，我們首先想到的，就是打電話給尼克，”亨德里克森這樣說。

????32的萊帕德是Accordion Partners公司的首席執行官，這是一家成立于2009年底的金融服務咨詢公司。萊帕德和其他25位銀行家組成一個快速反應小組，他們可以空降到任何一家私募股權投資公司或是其所投資的公司中，解決各類問題，起到“短期內強化管理層”的作用，該公司的名稱Accordion正是此意?！氨M管私募股權公司在力推，但他們所投資公司的管理層卻通常很難建立起一個非常復雜的風險預警系統，”萊帕德說：“這樣就會留下風險隱患?！倍R帕德專長，就是消除這些隱患。

????作為前圣約瑟夫大學曲棍球隊守門員，萊帕德在2002年進入商業銀行CapitalSource開始了其職業生涯，2005年他跳槽至貝爾斯登。2007年，他又加入到BHC基金公司的投資團隊，該基金公司管理著2億美元次級債。在這個過程中，他結識了日后的客戶，比如普羅維登斯資本公司和河濱資本等。

????2008年金融危機爆發之后，萊帕德斷言出華爾街即將發生改變：招聘人數將會減少，成交量也會萎縮，而股權投資公司也會長期持有手中的被收購公司。于是他敏銳地嗅出了其中的商機?！澳銜l現，雖然股權收購方仍會找機會套現退出，但當經濟形勢不景氣時，他們還是會給被收購公司以相當大的支持，”他說。萊帕德刻意保持著Accordion公司靈活的商業模式，比如，他的團隊可以如投行一般，為一樁并購案提供專業意見，但Accordion卻是按照其銀行家提供咨詢服務的時間來收費，而不是像投行那樣，并購交易達成之后再收費。所以，即使交易尚未完成，公司也照樣可以獲取收入，這樣就完全沒有必要去促成一樁失敗的買賣。

????9月，Accordion公司推出一項名為“首席財務官領導力”的服務項目。該項目旨在幫助公司處理投資者關系、風險管理、合規性以及危機處理等方面的問題。萊帕德說該項目尚屬市場空白，而他則要來填補。

????譯者：唐昕昕

????Pam Hendrickson needed reinforcements. Recently the chief operating officer of the Riverside Co., a private equity firm that owns more than 80 companies on four continents with combined sales of $3.2 billion, was trying to deliver a five-year budget for all of Riverside's operations. She found herself shorthanded -- one key employee was on maternity leave, another had just left -- and the task required masterful financial modeling skills. In a bind, she turned to Nick Leopard. Says Hendrickson: "Anytime we need analytic help, Nick is my first call."

????Leopard, 32, is the CEO of Accordion Partners, a financial services consulting firm that he founded in late 2009. Leopard and his team of 25 bankers act as a sort of rapid-response unit that can drop into a private equity firm or one of its portfolio companies and fix problems of all kinds -- temporarily expanding management's capacity, as the name Accordion suggests. "As much as private equity firms push, the management teams at their portfolio companies often can't build extremely complex forecasts," says Leopard. "So then there are surprises that no one saw coming." Leopard specializes in minimizing those unwanted surprises.

????A former lacrosse goalie at Saint Joseph's University, Leopard began his career at the commercial lender CapitalSource (CSE) in 2002 before moving to investment banking at Bear Stearns in 2005. In 2007 he joined the investment team at BHC Interim Funding, a $200 million mezzanine debt fund. Along the way he formed a network of future clients like Providence Equity Partners and Riverside.

????As the financial crisis unfolded in 2008, Leopard concluded that Wall Street was going to change: Headcounts would shrink, dealmaking would slow, and buyout firms would have to hold on to portfolio companies longer. He sensed an opportunity. "You could see that the buyout firms were going to get strapped but would still want to give their portfolio companies extra help when the economy slowed," he says. Leopard has purposely kept Accordion's business model flexible. For example, his team can advise on M&A transactions like an investment bank. But unlike a bank, which makes fees on completed deals, Accordion bills strictly for its bankers' time. The firm is paid even if the deal doesn't get done, so there's no built-in incentive to push for a bad transaction.

????In September, Accordion launched a new practice called CFO Leadership Services. The idea is to help companies manage investor relations, risk management, compliance, and crisis situations. Leopard says he sees another void in the market in those areas. And he's ready to fill it.