Covert & Co

Covert & Co. Bay Area Reception Video Recap

covert — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:14:43 +0000

Video Recap of Covert & Co.’s Bay Area Reception hosted at the Rosewood Hotel.

Financial Outlook 2012 Event: Michael Metzger to moderate expert panel

covert — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:30:53 +0000

The German American Business Association (GABA) is hosting its Annual Business and Financial Outlook Event to discuss the current state and the 2012 outlook of the economy, financial markets, trade, funding climate and real estate market both in the US and Europe. The event will be held at Deutsche Bank’s West Coast Headquarters at 2029 Century Park East in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday, February 2 2012, from 6:15 PM to 10:00 PM.

The event includes a high-ranking panel to be moderated by Michael Metzger, Vice-Chair and Board Member of GABA.

The expert panelists will provide their insight into what to expect for 2012 including:

Macro-economic business climate outlook
Economic outlook for Los Angeles, California, the US and Europe
Residential and commercial real estate outlook
Stock market investments
Access to capital
Trade and currency exchange

Introductions by:

Wolfgang Drautz, Intro Speaker – Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Los Angeles. Wolfgang Drautz has been Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Los Angeles since 2009. Prior posts of his Foreign Service career include the Consulate General in Chicago, IL, and the embassies in Moscow, London and Brussels.

Panelists include:

Michael Metzger, Moderator – Vice-Chair and Board Member of GABA in Southern California; Principal at Covert & Co., an investment bank focused on digital media, Internet and technology. Previously, Michael advised Yahoo’s Mobile Marketing and Advertising group and held senior management and engineering positions at AT&T, IBM and Mindspeed.

Larry Adam – Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist for Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management in the U.S. He is also a member of Deutsche Bank’s Global Investment Committee and frequently appears on television shows such as CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

Kevin Klowden – Managing Economist at the Milken Institute, where he serves as director of the California Center. He studies demographic and spatial factors such as the distribution of resources, business and labor in a region, the effects of public policy on these factors, and the subsequent impact on regional economies.

William Quigley – Managing Director at Clearstone Venture Partners. William focuses on the consumer Internet, wireless and enterprise markets and oversees portfolio companies including Xfire.com, Titan Gaming, AOptix Technologies, SoonR, Meru Networks, Novariant. Previously, he invested for Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds and was the Chief Financial Officer for Disney’s merchandise licensing division.

Gary Toebben – President & CEO of the LA Area Chamber of Commerce. He oversees the workings of the Chamber, ensuring that the organization champions initiatives contributing to the economic prosperity and quality of life of the businesses and citizens of Los Angeles. He has served on the Mayor’s L.A. Economy & Jobs Committee, the L.A. County Health Care Options Task Force and the City Council’s Business Retention & Attraction Task Force.

Covert & Co. Bay Area Reception Featured on Bloomberg TV

covert — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 22:43:42 +0000

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang discusses Google’s and Microsoft’s M&A strategy after moderating a panel at the Rosewood Hotel hosted by Covert & Co. (Source: Bloomberg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/78910822/

Covert & Co. Bay Area Private Reception

covert — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:59:22 +0000

Covert & Co. hosted a private reception in the Bay Area on October 24 at the Rosewood Hotel that brought together 250 of the most influential people in technology and digital media.

Emily Chang of Bloomberg TV hosted an exciting fireside chat with the Heads of Corporate Development from some of today’s leading technology and media companies.

Microsoft: Marc Brown – Managing Director, Corporate Development

Electronic Arts: Mike Foley – Vice President, Head of Corporate Development

eBay: Lorraine McDonough – Vice President, Corporate Development

Google: Dave Sobota – Director, Corporate Development

In addition to the above, other notable technology and media executives in attendance included CEOs, Venture Capital / Private Equity Partners, and Corporate Development directors from companies such as: Zynga, Facebook, Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Twitter, meebo, Storm8, Evernote, LinkedIn, Symantec, Venrock, Walt Disney, Ooyala, BlackArrow, Intel, Color Labs, Francisco Partners, Jaspersoft, Glam Media, Intuit, Summit Partners, and many others.

Join us on Facebook or Twitter.

Michael Metzger Receives M&A Advisor’s 2nd Annual 40 Under 40 Award

covert — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:38:19 +0000

LOS ANGELES, July 1, 2011 – Covert & Co. is pleased to announce that Michael Metzger has been chosen as one of 40 distinguished individuals under the age of 40 to be recognized with the M&A Advisor’s 40 Under 40 Award.

The M&A Advisor, renowned globally for its recognition of leading M&A, financing and turnaround professionals, designed this award to promote mentorship and professional development amongst emerging business leaders. An independent judging panel of distinguished business leaders selected the winners from a pool of international nominees based on their accomplishments and expertise.

Mr. Metzger will accept his 40 Under 40 Award on July 26 at a televised black tie Awards Gala at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.

Mr. Metzger is a Principal at Covert & Co. and has over 15 years of technology investment banking and operations management experience. Previously, he was a Vice President at New Century Capital Partners and advised Yahoo’s Mobile Marketing and Advertising group. He has also held senior management and engineering positions at AT&T, IBM and Mindspeed. He holds 5 patents in the field of Communications and also serves as Vice-Chair and Board Director of the German American Business Association (GABA) in Southern California. Mr. Metzger received an MSEE from the University of Ulm, Germany and his MBA from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

About Covert & Co.
Covert & Co. is a premium investment bank providing highly specialized M&A and financing services to internet, media and technology companies globally. Covert & Co. President, Kevin Covert, was previously co-founder of Montgomery and an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Brothers (now Citigroup).
Covert & Co. professionals have completed over 100 transactions over the past decade, including landmark M&A transactions such as MusicMatch/Yahoo!, MySpace/News Corp., NevenVision/Google, DailyCandy/Comcast, Disney/Club Penguin; and equity financing transactions including Meebo, Realtime Worlds, LegalZoom, Wildtangent, and Move Networks.

Will LinkedIn’s IPO Open The Floodgates?

covert — Wed, 18 May 2011 20:36:23 +0000

Tomio Geron | May 18, 2011

LinkedIn is preparing to price its IPO Wednesday and begin trading on the NYSE Thursday, in what could be a very big day for the company as well as investors and other shareholders.

Will the offering also open up a flood of new IPOs from Internet and social web companies that have been waiting for a “Netscape moment?”

LinkedIn upped its price range Tuesday to $42 – $45 from $32 – $35, a sign of what appears to be very strong demand for the IPO. At the top of the new range, LinkedIn would have a market cap of $4.25 billion.

LinkedIn will be the first social networking company to go public except for China-based Renren, which went out earlier this month, so it will set a public benchmark for the entire category. SecondMarket and Sharespost enable people to grab shares of companies like LinkedIn but up until now no company has gone public to prove that the prices trading on those platforms would stand up in public markets.

For Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Pandora and others that are poised to test the public markets, a strong LinkedIn IPO will provide more confidence that they can move forward with their own offerings.

“I think it provides a lot of optimism, not just a little,” says Kevin Covert, founder of tech investment bank Covert & Co. “It really opens up the IPO market. When you look at all the IPOs lined up. Just that optimism hasn’t been around for a really long time–since the last tech bubble.”

The LinkedIn IPO will also be a boost for smaller start-ups with a social bent–which is virtually anything in Internet or mobile these days-whether they are seeking a venture round, an acquisition or just hope for the future, says Covert. From what I’ve been hearing about early stage financing, the deals will only get crazier from here.

“This will set a good benchmark for those other companies,” Covert said.

Bankers will be firing up their spreadsheets once LinkedIn officially prices, because they’ll have something to really compare to in the public markets, rather than unofficial secondary market valuations.

“That’s what every other IPO banker is going to point to when they file their IPOs,” Covert said. “They’ll use that for pricing and the performance afterwards.”

For start-ups, LinkedIn not only provides a high valuation benchmark, it also now will be flush with cash and a new major acquirer, Covert said.

In the past many had talked about Facebook being the first to go public and usher in a new wave of IPOs the way Google or Netscape once did. But LinkedIn could end up being that company.

The ironic thing is that LinkedIn makes money in a variety of different ways, whereas many social web companies rely purely on advertising. And with its business focus, LinkedIn is different in many ways from most of the consumer-oriented social web start-ups today.

http://blogs.forbes.com/tomiogeron/2011/05/18/will-linkedins-ipo-open-the-floodgates/

Covert & Co. Advises Hearst on Partnership with News Corp. to Establish Industry Leader

covert — Fri, 06 May 2011 23:05:54 +0000

IGN Entertainment merges with UGO Entertainment

SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK, May 5, 2011 – News Corporation’s IGN Entertainment today announced the acquisition of Hearst Corporation’s UGO Entertainment, an agreement that will create a clear leader in video games media. IGN Entertainment will now operate its existing properties along with UGO.com, 1UP.com and UGO’s entire network of owned and affiliated properties. Together, the properties will reach a global audience of more than 70 million monthly visitors.

Under the terms of the agreement, Hearst Corporation will become a shareholder of IGN and will be an active participant in the development of the business.

“This instantly catapults us to another level and positions us to serve and entertain tens of millions more fans. We look forward to providing an even richer service for users and advertisers. We are now actively considering a range of options to maximize IGN’s long-term value,” said Roy Bahat, president, IGN Entertainment.

“The combination of IGN and UGO will create the complete ‘go to’ online destination for video game enthusiasts. The breadth, depth and quality of the content available through these sites will be unparalleled. This is a terrific combination for our viewers and our advertisers,” said Ken Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media.

IGN reaches nearly 40 million monthly visitors worldwide. UGO Entertainment properties—which include well-known gaming and entertainment sites 1UP.com and UGO.com—will add more than 30 million unique users to that total. They join IGN’s premium media sites, including gaming-related sites IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, Direct2Drive and TeamXbox; men’s lifestyle site AskMen; and IGN’s retail partner, GameStop.com. With this move, IGN broadens its spectrum of men’s entertainment content, allowing it to reach the highest concentration of men 18-34 online. Every month, IGN will reach one in four men online.

The addition of UGO’s properties expands IGN’s media lineup and suite of product offerings—online and on mobile devices—to its core audience of young males and the advertisers looking to reach them. Already ranking #1 in video for all video game sites, this move allows IGN even more opportunities for video distribution.

About News Corporation

News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of December 31, 2010 of approximately US$57 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$33 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in six industry segments: cable network programming; filmed entertainment; television; direct broadcast satellite television; publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.

About IGN Entertainment

IGN Entertainment, a unit of News Corporation, is the leading Internet media and services provider focused on the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN’s properties reached more than 40 million unique users worldwide in February 2011, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore. IGN’s network of video game-related properties (IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, Direct2Drive and others) is the Web’s leading video game information destination. IGN also owns the leading men’s lifestyle website AskMen.com, and provides technology for online game play in video games. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices across North America, Europe and Australia.

About Hearst Corporation

Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com) is one of the nation’s largest diversified media companies. Its major interests include ownership of 15 daily and 38 weekly newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union; nearly 200 magazines around the world, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine; 29 television stations, which reach a combined 18% of U.S. viewers; ownership in leading cable networks, including Lifetime, A&E, History and ESPN; as well as business publishing, including a minority joint venture interest in Fitch Ratings; Internet and marketing services businesses, television production, newspaper features distribution and real estate.

About Covert & Co.

Covert & Co. is a premium investment bank providing highly specialized M&A and financing services to internet, media and technology companies globally. Covert & Co. President, Kevin Covert, was previously co-founder of Montgomery and an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Brothers (now Citigroup).

Covert & Co. professionals have completed over 100 transactions over the past decade, including landmark M&A transactions such as MusicMatch/Yahoo!, MySpace/News Corp., NevenVision/Google, DailyCandy/Comcast, Disney/Club Penguin; and equity financing transactions including Meebo, Realtime Worlds, LegalZoom, Wildtangent, and Move Networks.

Covert & Co. Advises Hearst on Partnership with News Corp. to Establish Industry Leader

covert — Fri, 06 May 2011 00:12:54 +0000

IGN Entertainment merges with UGO Entertainment

Under the terms of the agreement, Hearst Corporation will become a shareholder of IGN and will be an active participant in the development of the business.

About News Corporation

About IGN Entertainment

About Hearst Corporation

About Covert & Co.

Montgomery Veteran Launches Tech Firm

covert — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:50:01 +0000

A Montgomery & Co. veteran has established a new firm to serve a sector that’s found its way back into the spotlight

April 8, 2011

Kevin Covert, a West Coast investment banking veteran who co-founded what is now Montgomery & Co. and expanded its merger and acquisition business into the Bay Area and the East Coast, says conditions are ripe for another bonanza in technology and new media, and he has started his own boutique investment bank, Covert & Co., to take advantage of it.

“I always wanted to do my own firm. I have a knack for the art of M&A,” said Covert, who announced the launch of his Los Angeles firm early last month. “I see a huge wave of deals coming, M&A and financing deals especially, over the next 12 to 18 months.”

Covert & Co. started with 10 employees, full and part time. By yearend, its founder expects to have 15 to 20 workers, as well as offices in the Bay Area and on the East Coast.

Covert, along with Jamie Montgomery and others, founded Digital Coast Partners in 1999 in Santa Monica, Calif. When it changed its name to Montgomery & Co. in 2003, Covert took charge of its technology and media-Internet groups. Three of his bankers left Montgomery to join his new firm.

“We had a good run, riding two tech waves” in 1999 and 2006-07. “I call them waves, not bubbles,” Covert said. “Then ’08 and ’09 came along,” and the recession “took a toll on the industry and my former firm.”

He expects his new firm to shun initial public offerings and, for the most part, to bypass public companies. He wants it to remain small and focused on technology and new media. Montgomery & Co.’s expansion into the public markets did not pay off, he said, largely because of the economic crash and expenses such as hiring research analysts.

“I learned a lot at Montgomery, where we tried a ton of different things and a lot that didn’t work,” Covert said. “IPOs have huge overheads. Being a public company means it’s hard to have a long-term vision when you have a quarterly report to answer to. Often you’re dealing with a very fickle investor base that wants results every quarter.”

He left Montgomery at the end of 2009 and spent all of last year, during a lull in M&A, planning his new venture.

His firm certainly has a fertile market to explore. In a report issued last week, International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., said that more than 1,900 deals were made in the information and communications technology sector last year.

Internet technology “spending has rebounded from the global recession,” the report said. “As confidence is regained, major technology vendors are using their huge amounts of cash to expand their businesses through acquisitions. This trend is evident in healthy M&A valuations.”

IDC expects 2011 “to be another active year as companies make strategic investments in a variety of critical areas, such as converged infrastructure, mobile content, service creation and enablement, data analytics” and the supporting infrastructure “and pervasive computing.”

Valuations of social networking companies such as Groupon and LinkedIn are soaring; Facebook’s has run as high as $65 billion, by some estimates. That has prompted Warren Buffett and others to warn that such valuations are excessive.

Michael Metzger, a Covert & Co. principal, has a slightly different take on the sector. “A whole new brand of companies has developed in the social media space. Larger companies such as Facebook and Twitter have really emerged,” he said. “It’s hard to judge, but some of the valuations do seem high.”

Covert acknowledged some overexuberance in tech and new media, though he says he does not see the kind of giddiness that led to an implosion of the sector 10 years ago. “Comparing and contrasting the two periods, I don’t think there’s a bubble” right now, he said. “The last time, there was irrational exuberance throughout the whole economy, not just in tech. Now, tech is strong, but other parts of the economy are still stagnant.” Another difference: “In 1999, we were just about getting started on the Internet. Retailing online wasn’t what it was today. Your big companies were Amazon and eBay. Now, everybody’s got an online store.”

Covert & Co. has five tech clients already, according to its founder. He would not name the clients, but he did say that they were all sell-side; two are in media/advertising, and one each is in mobile, financial services and video.

He did not specify how many deals he expects to handle this year. He did say the firm’s sweet spot for M&A would be companies with enterprise values of $50 million to $500 million, though Covert & Co. expects to make some larger deals. In capital raising, it will seek transactions with $15 million to $50 million of preferred equity. It also will get involved in venture capital, growth equity, private equity, hedge funds and strategic investments.

Covert says the field is wide open for a new investment bank. “There is no clear leader in what we do,” he said.

IDC said Internet companies stood out as prolific acquirers last year. Google led the information and communications technology sector with 27 deals, followed by AOL (nine), Facebook (eight), Groupon (eight) and Zynga (seven). This year, IDC also expects Microsoft to be more active “as it faces intense competition across all business lines.”

Covert has nearly 20 years of investment banking experience. He has assisted more than 100 companies with corporate finance and M&A transactions worth more than $5 billion.

At Montgomery & Co., he represented the digital music software and services provider Musicmatch in its $160 million sale to Yahoo “at the start if the [Internet] music boom” in 2004. That year, he also represented the German software publisher Element 5 in its sale to Digital River of Minneapolis for roughly $120 million. That deal, which had many cross-border complications, was one of his most difficult, he said. “You had a German group saying, ‘This is how we do things,’ then an American group saying, ‘This is how we do things.’ ”

He also advised on Myspace.com’s 2005 sale to News Corp. for $580 million and Grouper Networks’ sale a year later to Sony Pictures Entertainment for $65 million.

Before starting what became Montgomery & Co., Covert worked at Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Brothers, where he focused on corporate finance and M&A for Fortune 500 companies.

The German-born Metzger has a background in technology; he has held senior management and engineering positions at AT&T, IBM and Mindspeed. Before joining Covert & Co., he was a vice president at New Century Capital Partners, where he advised Yahoo’s mobile marketing and advertising group.

Thomas Burling, Covert & Co.’s chief technology officer, was the IT manager at Montgomery & Co. Before that, he held the same position at Leonard Green & Partners.

Covert said he wants his venture to be a “premier” firm modeled after Goldman Sachs. “We’ll be hiring people that are very strong in relationships and have a knowledge of tech and media.”

http://www.iddmagazine.com/issues/2011_14/montgomery-covert-218296-1.html

Covert & Co. Launch Party

covert — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:30:02 +0000

Kevin Covert and team are hosting a private, invite-only reception to celebrate the launch of his new firm, Covert & Co. This event will bring together the most influential people in digital media and technology. Attending the event will be CEOs from the hottest tech companies, as well as venture capitalists, angel investors and senior executives from large media and tech companies.

Covert & Co. is a premium tech investment bank founded by Kevin Covert. Kevin co-founded Montgomery & Co. in LA and built it over ten years, resulting in landmark M&A transactions such as MusicMatch/Yahoo!, MySpace/News Corp., NevenVision/Google, DailyCandy/Comcast, Disney/Club Penguin, and equity financings of Meebo, Realtime Worlds, LegalZoom, Wildtangent, and Move Networks.

This event is a private, invite-only reception. If you are interested in attending, please submit your registration request and we will respond regarding availability.

http://covertlaunchparty.eventbrite.com/