Interview: Andy Cagnetta, CEO

Andy Cagnetta

CEO Transworld Business Advisors

Which of your services have seen the most demand in the past year?

We had expectations that there would be huge numbers of businesses begging to be sold amid these di cult times. I think that for the most part, it’s a testament to the will of entrepreneurs that nationwide, we have not seen a glut of sellers coming to the market. For the last 25 or so years, it has been a buyer’s market and we have not seen those numbers slow down. There was so much investment money on the sidelines before this all started that these investors are still seeing an opportunity and they still want to deploy that capital.

What are Transworld’s strategies for helping clients get the most value from their business?

For us, the idea is to find the right buyer. To those that are hurting, we would urge them to hang in there. This is not the best time to sell a business if the profits are down. But if earnings and profits are up, it still is a great time to sell. The goal has been to educate people on this because we see ourselves as trusted advisers helping people get to a point where they eventually want to sell. Clients come to us with a life situation and we help them navigate this in terms of their business assets. In the early days of the crisis, we were providing a lot of advice and connecting them to banks that o ered PPP funding if their own financial institution did not.

Outside of COVID-19, what challenges are your clients facing and how you are helping them?

As the leader of Transworld in Florida and the leader of our franchises, I give tools to our people to succeed. We have been working on technological advancements for years and the pandemic gave us time to focus on this. On our website, we have a buyer match system, where customers can enter their criteria and receive alerts when a property becomes available. We have a DocuSign technology built into our CRM. We are aware of how complicated it is to sell a franchise or a business so we have been working for many years to make it as easy as possible for customers to distribute much-needed liquidity to the economy. But in some instances, the guidelines were issued as little as 48 hours in advance of the opening of ( ) ( ) the application process, meaning businesses had to turn to professionals to help understand eligibility criteria before an application was possible.

Firms soon found they could become increasingly innovative and streamlined. Many South Florida firms reported added efficiency generated by the ability to work from home. South Florida law firm Bilzin Sumberg allowed staff to work around their environment, getting rid of set office hours on the condition that client services were maintained. The firm has seen increased productivity, in addition to more efficiency derived from Zoom mediations and hearings, negating the need to commute, and allowing this dead time to be used in a productive way. Now that attorneys and judges alike have seen that Zoom hearings are possible in some instances, they may just be here to stay. “Our firm is technologically adept, and we value being ahead of the curve. We have a full-time litigation support team that works closely with our IT team to make sure we can all operate and conduct meetings, trials and arbitrations digitally. Using secure digital devices, we confidentially present exhibits to judges and arbitrators quickly and seamlessly all while our team retains complete control of the content,” Wes Holston, managing principal of the Fort Lauderdale office of Bressler, Amery & Ross, P.C., told Invest:. “Personally, I think there will be more and more digital hearings, mediations, and prep work. I can do trials and arbitrations in New York from right here in Fort Lauderdale. We also prep witnesses remotely, rather than incurring time and travel costs.”

McKinsey expects 2021 to be a year of transition as people begin to shape the future and get a grasp on what this looks like. The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) says that more than 20% of the global workforce, mainly in high-skilled jobs in sectors such as finance, insurance, and IT, could work the majority of its time away from the office and be just as effective, although it concedes that not all who can do so will. And while business travel is expected to slowly rebound, spending in 2021 will reach just half of 2019 levels, further lining the coffers of professional services firms.

The professional services sector also found support from the government through PPP funding. Fort Lauderdale law firms took advantage of the PPP program to avoid laying off employees. According to a PPP loan disclosure released on July 6, 2020, Hollywood-based firm Conroy Simberg received $6.2 million in PPP funding, allowing it to retain 408 employees. Becker & Poliakoff’s

James Berger

President – Berger Singerman

Technology has become a much more prevalent tool in how we go about our business. We had always assumed that technology would significantly change our business. COVID-19 accelerated that process, contracting what we assumed would be three to five years of technological innovation into less than a year. We have invested tremendously in tools that allow our lawyers to work remotely, to be more e cient and to be able to be fully functional without the kinds of support that were readily available when we were physically in our o ces. Due to the e ciency of virtual courtroom proceedings, we believe that courts will continue their use and, as such, we need to make sure our colleagues have state-of-the-art capabilities to serve our clients in the virtual setting.

Fort Lauderdale office retained 284 employees with $5.2 million in PPP funding. Davie firm Kelley Kronenberg retained 359 employees with $4.5 million in funds.

And the impact on employment was also temporary as job numbers began to climb as early as June, reaching 141,500 from 136,200 in April. As of March 2021, 143,900 people were employed in the professional services sector, marking a total net loss of 5% of jobs year over year. Although financial services also saw a dip in employment from March to April 2020, this was relatively minor at only 4.9%. As of March, net losses had dropped to 3%. Akerman, the same firm that implemented a resizing of its workforce early on, reported record revenue of $467.4 million for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2020.

Fort Lauderdale - A Financial Center Fort Lauderdale is fast becoming a financial and tech hub with the arrival of a number of startups, private equity firms and financial services firms. The city is home to private equity firms Seven Isles Capital, Las Olas Venture Capital and Neff Capital Management. Plantation is the regional headquarters for financial services giant American Express and is also home to Meg Green & Associates Wealth Management, a firm with $832 million in assets under management. In May, 2021, investment management firm Ceros Financial Services announced its intention to invest $100 million in medical technology companies in South Florida. And the city was one location in the crosshairs of Goldman Sachs as it mulled the relocation of two of its asset management businesses to South Florida.

The city of Fort Lauderdale is one of the fastestgrowing in Florida, registering growth at a rate of 6.6% since 2000. Both the state and the city are tax friendly, with no corporate tax and just a 1% county sales tax in Broward. The city has a large pool of workers, world-class infrastructure and a strong international presence. Not only this, but Fort Lauderdale – indeed, much of Broward County – has all the buzz of an up-and-coming area, with restaurants, culture and entertainment options at a fraction of the price of comparable cities in the Northeast and residents can enjoy an outdoor lifestyle year-round. Despite an influx into the region since the onset of the pandemic, real estate prices are still accessible. According to Realtor. com, the median list price of Fort Lauderdale homes in April 2021 was $496,000, a 14% year-over-year increase and setting it at $327 per square foot. This is a drop in the ocean compared to Manhattan’s median list price of $1.3 million in the same month, a staggering $1,400 per square foot. “Florida as a whole has a tremendous benefit in the absence of income taxes, coupled with a fairly low amount of taxes,” said Dennis Smith, vice chairman and former president of Tripp Scott, in an interview with Invest:. “A lot of people have moved here because of the tax system the state provides. We are seeing an increasing number of businesses setting up shop here. The business and employment climate is good and will continue to be so. Another encouraging sign is the significant number of people coming back to Florida to work and settle.”

The Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance has also been focused on incentivizing businesses to make the ( )