Formed in 1991 by two brothers, Rich and Phil Strobel, The Strobel Group, Inc. is a sharply focused Wisconsin-based boutique merger and acquisition consulting firm serving clients who are manufacturing and/or distributing exclusively within the specialty chemical space. The primary segments we participate within, representing either a buyer or seller, include paints, coatings, inks, adhesives, sealants, composites, and chemical distribution.
Over the past thirty-four years, we have managed a wide variety of acquisition and divestiture projects. We work with owners, chief executives, and other senior officers who recognize the value of M&A expertise to provide them with the best chance to successfully accomplish their objectives.
Our firm has worked with virtually all of the well-recognized, publicly traded industry participants, as well as larger privately held companies. Buy-side clients include regional, national, and international firms. On the sell-side, clients are primarily U.S. based, with a regional, national, or international presence. Although the majority are privately held businesses, we also work with CEO’s of publicly traded firms where a product line, division, or subsidiary has been identified as a candidate for divestment.
On sell-side projects, our client-approved buyers contacted may include both U.S. based and international firms and often include private equity firms with a current position or an interest in the specialty chemical space. Private equity buyers can offer a somewhat different transaction structure than a “strategic” buyer and we encourage our clients to include these firms in the buyer evaluation process.
Rich Strobel continues a 30+ year role as the “deal maker”, active in client engagement efforts, valuations, all meetings with clients and buyers/sellers, proposal evaluations, negotiations, and closings. Penny Strobel has 20+ years at the firm. She manages the research side of the business, which is critical to a good result for our clients and our resulting success. That includes maintaining our database of over 1,600 companies with the most current information available. Penny is actively involved in developing the initial target list for buy-side projects and the buyer contact list for sell-side projects, as well as editing all drafts of Confidential Information Memorandums (CIM) used to market sell-side projects.