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P: 310-273-6000 | F: 310-273-6006
Los Angeles investment giant Skyview Capital is opening a new office in Dallas to capture some potential carve-outs from media and telecom companies in the region.
Running the office will be Darryl Smith, a former Marine Corps captain and a private equity veteran. He will be in charge of overseeing the operations and improvements of the companies the firm invests in.
He’s currently helping combine call centers that the firm acquired from business process services company Conduent (NYSE: CNDT) earlier this month. With the deal, Skyview is getting in on $500 million in contracts generated by the call centers last year.
The deal is a staple of what Skyview does: carve out units from giant companies that aren’t essential to the overall business.
Skyview then dedicates resources the previous owner wasn’t willing to in order to ramp up production.
Smith spoke with the Dallas Business Journal about how the firm’s goals in Dallas.
SKYVIEW
Skyview Capital’s Darryl Smith will oversee the operations of Skyview’s portfolio companies.
What about the Dallas market was attractive for Skyview to open an outpost here?
Deal flow. You have a lot of the Fortune 500 in Dallas. Skyview targets large companies to get the spin outs. We will talk to some of the companies here that might be looking to get rid of noncore divisions.
That fits our model perfectly, especially in telecom. From a finance perspective and raising capital, there are a number private equity firms and family offices here, too.
What’s the biggest hurdle for growing a company that an investor has provided capital to?
It’s people. We are all fighting the war for talent. It is and will remain getting the best folks for our teams. When we do these carve-outs, setting up IT infrastructure and back office systems, it’s always challenging. We’re good at it, but we learn every day. Not every private equity firm can do carve-outs because they don’t have the expertise that we do.
If Amazon comes here, how much harder will it be to find talent?
Initially, it’s going to be tough. It’s a lot of people. It’s going to suck up a lot of talent in the market. I was in Seattle recently and talked to people who worked for Amazon in the past. It’s a great company, but it’s not for everyone.
You’ve done some work on the defense contracting space. Has it surprised you how much private equity is piling into that part of the market? Will it continue or have we peaked?
I think people believe there is a lot of growth opportunity there. We’ve seen a few companies that provide services or products to defense divisions of larger companies. It’s probably going to be going to a tier one or tier two provider that we would look at.
Will Skyview look to Texas for any future deals?
We’ve got to build relationships with the folks in Dallas. We’ve already started down that path. It’s just a matter of developing those and expanding them as we grow our office and our presence and get a little clearer on all the things we want to do in the market. (We will) start to think about who joins our team and when. It’s going to be a business development-led effort.
Jon Prior
Staff Writer
Dallas Business Journal
2000 Avenue of the Stars | Suite 810N | Los Angeles, CA 90067
P: 310-273-6000 | F: 310-273-6006 | info@skyviewcapital.com
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