This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠, the leading insurance brokerage and insurance diligence provider for the search fund community. The company is led by ⁠August Felker (himself a 2-time successful searcher), and has been trusted by search investors, lenders, searchers and CEOs for over a decade now. Their due diligence offering (which is 100% free of charge) will assess the pros and cons of your target company’s insurance program, including any potential coverage gaps, the pro-forma insurance pricing, and the program structure changes needed for closing. At or shortly after closing, they then execute on all of those findings on your behalf. Oberle has serviced over 900 customers across a decade of operation, including countless searchers and CEOs within the ETA community.

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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symphony⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Symphony not only performs technical due diligence engagements for search funds, Private Equity firms, and strategic acquirers, but they also partner with those buyers on an ongoing basis on all things product (outsourced development, team augmentation, new product prototyping, UI refreshes, QA professionalization, and so on). Symphony is offering a full 15% off of any of their services for listeners of In the Trenches. Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the Contact form on their website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and tell them that you’re a listener of the podcast to receive this discount!

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To say that it's been an active 6-12 months in the banking sector would be an understatement: Beginning as recently as January, 2022, we've seen the US Federal Funds rate increase from .08% to 4.83%, the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and the rescue of First Republic Bank by JPMorgan, representing the second largest bank failure in the history of the United States. Against this backdrop, CEOs and prospective acquirors of small businesses understandably have a lot of questions about their banking partners, their ability to secure loans, and the terms under which they might be able to do so. To get us up to speed on the state of lower-middle-market credit in North America, I'm joined by Anthony Rodriguez and Conor Tidgewell of Avidbank, who walk us through what has changed, the "new normal", and what it all means for entrepreneurs and CEOs running (or seeking to acquire) a small business. Please Enjoy!