Deals of the Year | Road-Warrior Award
Brown Gibbons Lang & Co.'s Michael Gibbons
May 2008
Last year Brown Gibbons Lang & Co.'s Michael Gibbons logged over 300,000 airline miles, regularly traveling between the U.S. to countries such as Argentina, Holland, Japan, Poland and Chile, among others. Such is the life of a co-founder and chairman determined to build his investment bank into a global franchise that's as well known in Latin America or Europe as it is in its hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. What's amazing, however, is that while much of Gibbons' life is spent in the air, he makes it a point to never miss the sporting events of his three teenage children.
"You can count on one hand the number of games I've missed," he describes when Mergers & Acquisitions caught up with him over the phone at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. (He was en route to Florida to enjoy a well-deserved vacation with the family.)
It is not without sacrifice that Gibbons manages to balance his time between his family and his job. He describes a situation last year when his son's football game ran late. The choice Gibbons faced was to either leave the game early for a flight to Richmond, Va., where he was scheduled to deliver a speech or, alternatively, stay to the end and miss the flight. He chose the latter, but wasn't forced to miss the event. He simply got in his car and drove seven straight hours overnight, arriving in plenty of time to deliver the speech.
"I give a better speech if I don't sleep," he says, adding with a laugh, "I'm an insomniac, so it didn't hit me that hard."
It's this dedication that has made Brown Gibbons Lang an essential contributor to Global M&A, a partnership between 37 various investment banks and advisory firms that band together to provide seamless execution of cross-border deals spanning across North and South America, Europe, the Nordic Region and both the Middle and Far East.
But to Gibbons, it's not just about traveling to different countries. Even dealing within his home state of Ohio, he makes it a point to add a personal touch. He describes one deal last year in which he drove from his home in Cleveland to Cincinnati 15 different times to make sure the transaction was finalized — no easy feat considering the commute takes three hours each way.
It's this commitment, however, that has kept Brown Gibbons Lang humming even while much of the M&A market has stalled.
"We're not seeing a lull," Gibbons describes, pointing to two separate deals the firm intermediated on, ranging from $500 million to $800 million in size. The firm typically advises on deals involving companies valued at around $100 million.
If there's one drawback to Gibbons' busy schedule, it's that he can be a very difficult man to pin down. Allison Dent, co-founder and managing partner of Synergis Capital in Toronto and an executive committee member of Global M&A, calls Gibbons one of the most tireless players on the mid-market M&A scene. She also describes a situation last year in which she wanted to book him for a speech. "It took us two weeks just to find two days on his schedule," she says.
Through it all, Gibbons still finds time to network and conduct business beyond his investment banking duties. He serves on the audit committee of Preformed Line Products, a listed Ohio construction and manufacturing company, and he is also the chairman of the financial planning committee of Associated Estates Realty Corp., an Ohio-listed REIT. To top it all off, he manages to find time for his athletic endeavors as the chairman of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. While attending Kenyon College, Gibbons, himself, played football, lacrosse and wrestled.
One might assume that someone as busy as Gibbons, who spends so many hours outside of his normal time zone, would have little room for pursuits outside of his job or family. But Gibbons is a die-hard Cleveland Indians fan, who somehow found time to attend last year's infamous "Bug Game," when the Indians stole a victory from the Yankees. For a man who wears so many different hats, it must have been a good time to be wearing an Indians lid.
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