Message from ACG President Bill Heringer

Dear ACG Denver Members and Guests:

When you commit to spending almost two full days away from the office it had better be worth your while. You want to be inspired, motivated, and educated – both for your personal growth and the success of your business.

There’s nothing quite like ACG-Denver’s annual conference to meet high expectations like these. Ask the 740 registered attendees this year, who would agree that compelling keynote speakers, informative CEO panels, deal sourcing, and lots of opportunity for networking and socializing combine to create Denver’s premier conference.

We thank Larry and Patricia Nelson of w3w3.com for dedicating its newsletter to the conference so that those who weren’t able to attend can experience some of the excitement and benefit from the expertise of our speakers.

Every year the conference grows. We look forward to seeing this year’s attendees back next year along with all of you who didn’t make it this year but are committed to growing your companies.

Mark March 11th and 12th 2009 on your calendar now. We guarantee that you’ll learn key strategies that will make a difference in building, buying, or selling your business. It’s definitely time worth planning for.

ACG Denver Home

452_ Women and Leadership: How the Soft Stuff Can Lead to Hard Results
Born in Canada, Colleen Abdoulah, CEO & Chairman, WOW went to college thinking she wanted to work in the media, but realized journalism was not for her. But she got into the ad business as an account executive. That led to opportunities here in the US with an ad agency in Cincinnati. One of her clients was Warner Amex Cable which is now Time Warner, and she ended up going over to the cable side, and was in cable from 1984 to 99. She took a bit of a sabbatical at that point and adopted her “beautiful daughter” from foster care. Colleen spent about 3 years being a mom and doing some leadership coaching when she got a call from a venture capital friend asking if she wanted to come and help turn around the organization at WOW. That was August 5th, 2002. Today she is CEO and recently named Chairman of the Board. Colleen wanted an opportunity to put to work some principles that she believed and learned from her father. She went on to describe how they have accomplished some extraordinary milestones. "At WOW we set our goals. Everybody is clear what they are. So the what is clearly defined and planned for, yet we spend 99% of our time on the how. I believe if you spend time on how you get there, the results will be there. And the good news is we’ve proven that out at WOW. For five years now, we have over achieved, our financial goals, our operational metrics, every goal that we have set we have over achieved it. Every year we have paid bonuses, every year we’ve had salary increases, every year we have increased the amount of capital spent in order to give people the resources they need to develop and grow and for the business to grow. So we’ve proven that paying attention to what some call soft skills gets you very hard results. The WOW way is to lead with courage, serve with heart and celebrate with grace!" Colleen goes onto explain the 'how' details.   LISTEN

Colleen Abdoulah, CEO and Chairman WOW, Part 2 of 2

453_ Key Points for Differentiating Your Company from the Competition
“A lot of things are going well, how can we take advantage of that, continue the momentum and not just rest on our past successes?” That's a challenging question that Colleen Abdoulah, CEO & Chairman, WOW asks her team. "I don’t want us to get complacent, take things for granted. So we are focusing on what we have done well, and how can we do it even better and make sure we do it consistently. Secondly how can we continue to differentiate ourselves in the eyes of our consumers, our employees because it is a very competitive world out there? Colleen is the opening keynote speaker at the 6th Annual Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference. Her parents were immigrants during the depression. Facing a great deal of obstacles and prejudice, her father became a very successful entrepreneur. "I observed with three key take-a-ways for me that I thought I would always apply in my life," Colleen went onto explain. 1) You are no better than anyone else, and don’t ever treat anybody like you are, no matter how much material wealth you have. And don’t let them treat you like they are. 2) Know what you don’t know. You don’t have to be the sharpest pencil in the box to make a contribution. But make sure that you surround yourself with really good people who know things that you don’t know and are maybe even smarter than you are. 3) The third principle was, Share the wealth. Always share the wealth and take care of people. There's more, and Larry and Pat will be there to cover this great event. LISTEN 3/10/08

Related Links: Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference || WOW Home Page || ACG M&A Channel || Find It ||
Keywords: Colleen Abdoulah, WOW, ACG, Denver, Mergers and Acquisitions, Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference> Bytes: 13196959 > LISTEN

399_ M&A News:
ABA Private Target Deal Points Study

The 2007 Private Target Deal Points Study, a project of the Mergers & Acquisitions Market Trends Subcommittee of the Committee on Negotiated Acquisitions of the American Bar Association’s Section of Business Law, is widely recognized as the gold standard for market metrics of key negotiated issues in M&A agreements and has achieved notable popularity among investment bankers, private equity investors, CFO’s and other non-lawyer deal professionals as an “unfair advantage” in negotiating private company acquisition agreements. The Study analyzes publicly available acquisition agreements for transactions of between $25 and $500 million in size completed in 2006 that involved private targets being acquired by public companies. The final Study included 143 acquisition agreements. Hendrik Jordaan of Holme Roberts & Owen and Clifford Pearl of Solomon Pearl Blum Heymann & Stich talked about other issues covered by the study: Purchase price adjustments and earnouts; Catch-all representations and warranties; Closing conditions; Indemnification survival periods, baskets, and caps; Dispute resolution provisions.
Related Links:   Holme Roberts & Owen || Solomon Pearl Blum Heymann & Stich || Mergers & Acquisitions || It's the Law ||
Keywords:Hendrik Jordaan of Holme Roberts & Owen and Clifford Pearl, Solomon Pearl Blum Heymann & Stich, Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Target Deal Points Study Channels: HRO & ACG - 10/29/07 Bytes: 14207585 > LISTEN

ACG Denver members Hendrik Jordaan and Clifford Pearl are active participants in the working group that prepared the study and would be delighted to provide a complimentary copy to members of ACG Denver upon request. To receive your complimentary copy of the Study, and periodic updates and supplements to the Study, please contact Hendrik Jordaan of Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP at Hendrik.Jordaan@hro.com
Clifford Pearl of Solomon Pearl Blum Heymann & Stich, LLP at
cpearl@solpearl.com.

ACG Denver Events for 2008
ACG Event Photos by w3w3.com
Click Photo to see All Photos

3/12/08 6th Annual Corporate Growh Conference

Corporate Growth Conf - 2008, Day 2 3/13/08

Leadership 20 Graduation 12/7/07

12/4/07 US Economic &Financial Outlook


11/14/07 Changing Roles as Company Grows

11/6/07 Social Entreprenuership

10/26/07 First Annual Leadership20

The Deal Makers Forum - 9/26/07