VIRTUAL KEYNOTE Q&A with Neil Reithinger, Managing Partner at Eventus Advisory Group
Summary
Company Overview: Aventus Advisory Group specializes in providing embedded financial operators and technical accounting experts to high-growth companies, focusing on building robust financial frameworks and strategies.
Service Differentiation: Unlike traditional fractional CFO services, Aventus emphasizes a deeply embedded role within client companies, fostering long-term partnerships and adapting to evolving client needs.
Market Expertise: Aventus possesses a nuanced understanding of both US and Canadian market regulations, including specific requirements for IPOs and cross-listings, leveraging local expertise to navigate these complexities.
Role in IPO Process: Aventus plays a critical role in IPO preparation, providing audit prep, corporate governance, and financial operations, while also offering leadership and planning to ensure successful capital raises.
Client Engagement: Aventus remains engaged with companies throughout the pre-IPO and post-IPO processes, offering continued support as businesses scale and require ongoing financial and strategic guidance.
Private Company Focus: Aventus also serves private companies, offering essential financial processes, FP&A, and capital markets advisory to support growth and strategic initiatives.
Team Structure: Aventus employs full-time staff with expertise in financial operations and SEC regulations, avoiding staff rotation to maintain institutional knowledge and client continuity.
Additional Services: Aventus provides ancillary services such as internal controls, transaction advisory services, and strategic CFO functions, ensuring comprehensive support for client financial needs.
Transcript
Welcome to the Planet Micro Cap Showcase Toronto in partnership with Micro Cap Club. I'm your host, Robert Craft, and joining me for this virtual keynote Q&A is Neil Riinger. He's the founder and managing partner at Adventist Advisory Group. Neil, thank you for joining me today. How you doing? >> I'm doing pretty good. How about you? Oh, good to see you. >> We're getting after it as usual. Um, but look, we wanted to invite you to do this virtual keynote because, you know, one, I always love to hear your insights on, you know, what's going on, not just with Adventist, but, you know, how it relates to the macro and everything that's going on in the markets. But at the same time, you know what? We wanted this opportunity for you to also give folks a better understanding as to what's going what Aventus does, how they can, how you guys can help, all that good stuff. So my first question then for you you know what would you say is the most succinct explanation of what Aventus does? >> Well we are we serve the office of the CFO. So we are we bring embedded financial operators and technical accounting experts into high growth companies to build financial frameworks to you know systems and strategies at scale. Okay. Whether it be core accounting and controllership or to strategic finance, IPO, M&A, we lead to build the finance function that companies wish they had before the pressure hit. And often in our indust, there's a term called fractional CFO work, which is thrown around. And we really don't like to use that. It's it's an easy quick term to say what a company what what a firm would do for companies. But the problem with it is is it doesn't feel like it's embedded. And in fact, what we do is very embedded. And in doing what we do, we have to um bring in uh expertise and people that have been there and done that and can really help companies scale. So we have a job to do and certainly that may seem very matterof fact and what that job is. It could be very quantitative from a finite beginning and end but at the end of the day it's a very embedded role. We have to make them feel like we're a part of their team. Okay. >> Very good. So what what crit what criteria are important to Aventist when choosing to represent a company? Well, there's usually I kind of separate it into two categories. So, you've got those engagements that are finite in scope and term time that are very taskoriented and then you have those others that are that are ongoing and where you have to sort of adapt to the changing needs of the clients as they scale. Right? So, for the first it's pretty pretty binary. You you you're hired for a job to do. You're you're kind of a number, right? You have to, you know, obviously be a domain expert in what you're doing. You're hired for that job. you're going to you work out the economics for both parties and there's a beginning and an end and you hope that as a result of that there's a relationship that's built where they want to continue using but those are those are those are roles we have that we're going to all do that's fine that we can do but it's the second one that's interesting is where they need us for as a sort of a partner because it's not a finite beginning there's a there's there's a there's a beginning to it with a scope but that scope may change and adapt because we're working with them as a scale right so and then the ending we don't which could be continuous. We've had clients for four or five years or longer that simply need us because we're growing as they're we're growing with them as they're growing and we're their embedded finance team. So in a way they're different because it's not just how much does it cost, what are you doing, but they really appreciate what we do and want us for our leadership and so we guide them to adapt to their changing needs and that's a different relationship. So those are there a completely two different sets. So we look for, you know, kind of look in those two areas, but specifically for the second, we look for the ones that can really appreciate and understand that. Okay. We're we're ready to do the job and be a number, but we look we enjoy the the relationships where we can be a partner with them. >> Understood. Understood. So look, we're doing this event in Toronto. You know, yeah, we're talking virtually. People watch this online, whatnot, but you know, as a USbased firm, how does your expertise apply to the markets in Canada? and what enables you to differentiate yourself from some of the other similar firms in the Canadian market? >> Uh, well, the the the fundamentals, you know, the fundamentals of business don't change. You've got you've got you need to have sound financial governance. You've got to have processes. You got to have business strategy. You need to have, you know, analytics and largely good financial reporting and so on. That's the same universally no matter what. So I think it's it's where the nuances come in that a company who's assisting and working with companies in Canada can use that chassis of the table stakes fundamental work but also know those nuances. You've got you've got you know the registration statement requirements for example for a company going public in the US are this and you've got your S1's and you got uh and then in Canada you have a prospectus and it's different. There's different rules to follow. You've got, you know, the the different rules that and the requirements for listing for NASDAQ and for NIC American and the US and then of course you got TSX, TSXV or CSC in Canada. The requirements are different. There's nuances there to understand. Um there's also um like auditor requirements. You know what what does it take for a company that is actually maybe US doiciled that wants to list in Canada and will certain auditors be able to do that because they're not licensed in Canada as opposed to one that's l that's doiciled in Canada wants to list in the US can they do that and some as you start to weed out who the who the providers are that that can be used. So it's really a matter of you know you have to have boots on the ground to do that and we do have boots on the ground in Toronto. We have uh uh we have Ira heads up our our our practice in Canada who has that it's those nuances that matter like our team in the US we can do efers and we can do US gap we can do Canadian gap we can do local we can do all for whether it be Canadian or international companies but with that respect with respect to understanding and having that extra edge with understanding the the the securities and the rules behind some of these registration statements and how these companies have to navigate whether listing there or c cross crosslisting we have to have that edge So you have to have boots on the ground, you know, >> 100%. So yeah, >> look, it may seem obvious to some, but to many others who may not know, h how is Aventus different from than an audit firm? >> Well, first of all, we're a lot more fun to work with. That's for sure. So uh uh we've been I actually do I actually do a panel to help students at the at the University of Arizona. And one panel they went they were looking at us and one of the students came in and said you guys seem a lot more fun as the consultants than the auditors and all. It's kind of funny that observation but but you can't obviously as a as someone coming out of college become into consulting. You have to actually start somewhere. But but you like anything you have to quote unquote cut your teeth somewhere. But the difference is is independence. You know we are we are not independent. We are not doing assurance. We're not doing any type of assurance work which involves audits, reviews or compilations. We don't do that. We're not we're not we're not peerreviewed piece. We don't want to do that. We are on the side of the client. We have to prepare. We have to deliver things on a silver platter for the auditors so that they can do their work. And there's a clear distinction there that wasn't as clear uh number of years ago, you know, when before particularly Sarbain Oxley as well as auditors could just sort of help clients in doing so. can't do that anymore and that's been that way for years now. They have to need they need some they need to make sure that they can they can do their job as auditors and need to make sure the client does their job in terms of preparing and a lot of times clients need help with that. Now there is a there is there's a the word collaboration could be used and that's often you know something that is uh what depending on the auditor they could say we can't collaborate but there's definitely a collaborative nature that an auditor can have. They just can't answer the question for the client. If you have a position you want to take, you have to present that position so the auditor can opine on that position, right? So in that regard, there has to be that clear separation and that wall between the two. So and we don't want to be that role anyway. We're we like to be advisers. We like to be, you know, consoliaries to companies. We like to do what we do in the office of the CFO. So it's not our role, nor will it ever be. That's not something we want to do. >> You know, you don't want to be the Tom Hayden. I mean, come on. Uh who doesn't who doesn't love the Tommy Hayden? So what what role does Aventus then serve in the IPO process for both US and Canadian issuers? >> Well, we're we you know we do all the table stakes functions, right? We're going to do audit prep. We're going to do corporate governance and design and implementation. We're going to do IPO prep. We're going to do financial operations and accounting. You know, all those things that people hate to do and they need. But I think uh you know, so we could we could get into that and so on. But I think in general um you know listeners to this kind of know what that is and they know generally speaking kind of those areas in accounting and how that can expand into the other areas of corporate governance and finance. But I think the key area is is is leadership and planning. You know we we understand what the process is. We know who the constituents are that a company needs to be able to be successful. We know what the technical and the nuances are with respect to filings and how long it takes, you know, like what the review period's going to be. If a company's in Canada is doing an F1 as a foreign private issuer or if they're do redisting and they do an S1, we know the process it takes. We know the role the attorney has, the role the banker has, we know the role obviously where the audit where everybody has to come in and play to actually make that work. you know, we're familiar with if we have to, we can stay in our little lane and and do financial statements and footnotes and we can work on the NDNA. Uh or if there isn't necessarily the leadership on that, we can expand that role so that we know that okay, maybe we need to refer them in on a particular auditor if they don't have one already or refer them in because we know and the bankers as well. It's just it just depends on what point and where the ball is on the field that we can come in. The key is we have best practices in the whole process and we know at what point some of these things have to be initiated, right? So I think that's important to have the right leadership and you're not sort of a deer in the headlights when you do your piece and then everything else and something's not getting addressed that you can step up and do that for the client. And I think that's essential with regard to any any capital raise, any IPO, any audit a company is going through, what have you, to be able to do that. >> So in essence, you're the Tom Hagen for the helping companies through that. By the way, it's Hagen. My dad's going to kill me if I said you heard me say Hayden. I was a Hagen. >> My goodness. >> Well, it's like the Forest know. Yeah, I know. You have to He'll be upsetting you for that. I know. >> Um but at least he knows all the holidays on the Jewish calendar now. Before he was forgetting about that on some of his we have we have that locked in for sure. >> But you have to know the big picture just like anything. You're big. You're you you're a domain expert. your subject matter expert, whatever you want to call, and you have a role to do, but at the same time, you got to kind of know how it all fits together, you know, because sometimes a client doesn't necessarily have that guidance that you assume they have at some point along the way. And you got to be willing to pick up a shovel and answer that question and know what it is or at least know how to find it pretty quickly. >> Okay. >> 100%. So, >> yeah. >> Does Aventus remain engaged with the company throughout the preIPO and post process? Yeah, we we will we will we will scale and stick with the company through the duration as long as they need the services we offer because oftent times as they're growing and scaling, you know, the manager is trying to focus on the growing the business. They got to grow the revenue. They got to focus on strategy. And the reality is what it takes to build out an internal team to scale the office of the CFO to scale that whole that whole village as it's as you it takes a village to run that office is a lot. You have to have qualified professionals on the financial operations side. You have to have qualified professionals on the technical and reporting side. You have to have qualified professionals as you have to engage and do internal controls in corporate governance as that scales. You have to have qualified professionals to help you with certain strategy in terms of your business analytics in terms of what to look for to scale your business. It's really tough to build that out quickly in the initial stages. And that's why too uh for for for for public companies, you know, we can really help any company at any size. And admittedly, as a company gets very big, they're going to want the optics of maybe a large consulting arm of a big four. We get that. That's just part of life that way you get. the work is is the same but can be much more robust for larger companies and then they start to build that out for themselves because they have they want to have that in-house but the truth of the matter is there is a there's there's a bit of a void in real qualified finance professionals too you know even even you know kids coming out of college don't want to do it as much because they think it's boring when actually it's a great profession to get into because it can lead to so many things you can be a CFO and be background of accounting you can be you know you know investment banker and be background it's a you know, that's an unfortunate thing for the profession. Therefore, that pendulum's swinging the other way now based on some of the educational protocols that are occurring. But in terms of, you know, and as as clients and professionals go out and they do and they get involved in the field and they become may maybe they they they segue into other parts of the profession, the the level of people that are able to do the work is is not necessarily there's many smart people out there, but not as plentiful as you would like on some companies as they're scaling. So they need that outside help, you know, and they'll find it eventually as they grow and have the inter. But some companies don't want that either. So we need to hang with them not only for the IPO, but as they're doing their reporting, you know, of course in the US we call that the 34 act filings and so on. Of course, as they're doing their filings in Canada as well on Cedar. So we have to make sure that, you know, we're able to be domain experts in all those areas to stay with them as long as they need us. Yeah. >> Very good. All right. And do you work you do work with or do you work with private companies as well? Yeah, you know, private companies are actually critical to our firm mission and you know, our our firm strategy because they're first of all, there's a lot more private companies than public companies or even companies that want to go public. But in fact, you know, if you really strip out the public aspect of IPO prep and reporting and Sarbain Oxley or internal controls are left with the core fundament, you're left with those core fundamentals of a business, right? And that what I was getting to before is you got to have good financial processes and FPNA and business analytics and you got to have strategy and capital markets advisory because some a lot of our a lot of our private companies are in the process and they're raising money as well whether they're doing with private credit whether it's they're they're they're raising equity whether it's commercial debt whatever it may be we have to be advisers on that. So we have actually a pretty robust private company practice and a number of companies more in fact because there's just simply more needs that are out there from a variety of scale. So you could have we'll help companies anywhere from startups to we have billion-dollar clients. We're working on a subsidiary or part of them. As the companies get bigger, it's maybe more of a special project because they do have a team. But you'd be surprised on some, you know, middle market private companies the help they need. you think, oh, they've got a a finance team already and they're able to handle all their internal reporting or even basic accounting or when it comes to their business analytics and their metrics. That is that is that that assumption definitely can't be made because there's a lot of companies that do need that help as they're scaling. And again, they may not be able to find that that that talent right away because their CFO may be a great CFO and be a controller, but that that actual strategy and and that comes into play is something that our team has that they'll need help with. So very big big important part of our practice and then of course some of those want to become public as well and that of course that happens but that not that's not the plan. The plan is just to help them and there's a small small percentage that maybe at some point will go public but not in any way shape or form is that the intent. >> Yeah. >> Very very good. So what what what is the expertise of your team and how are they staff for engagements? Are they full-time and do you rotate staff on engagements? Yeah, we well I'll get to the la we first of all do not rotate staff on engagements because we you lose that institutional knowledge and that momentum and that cadence. So um we there may be cases where staff goes on vacation gets sick in the case that someone might leave fortunately our turnover is low. You have to account for those things and we always have a backup for a client with respect to you know what other people on our team being familiar with that client mainly too with the director we have on our team. Every client has one of our leadership somebody from our leadership team a director and the way we function is we have two kind of we have directors come from sort of you look at two two parts financial operations directors those have primarily been CFOs and have run private companies and then those and then we have our uh SEC directors and that's those are those that have been CFOs of public companies and or engagement partners of audit firms that that it's a totally different specialty. So depending on what a client's needs are, um, we will staff accordingly. If it's primarily, if it's a private company, it's going to be primarily fin. They're going to not need the technical side as much, although they may need it for some things that they need financial statements because they have to report to the board or they have to report to a bank or their private lender or an equity partner. And then on the on the financial operations side, we'll staff accordingly. And they're all full-time. We don't do consultants. It doesn't work for us. Uh, it sometimes does on special circumstances that may involve the areas that might be a little bit outside of our domain to have them work with us while they're they're they're on on a certain special finite project. Let's say it has to do with some kind of, you know, consulting on human resources or consulting on some special area of tax or whatever that they do. So, but um but we have even from our cultural standpoint, we need a full-time team because we want to make it again as we're embedded dedicated with the client and make sure that they feel like it's part of their team and make sure that they're responsive and they're reacting to what we want them to do as a firm. Okay? And that's critically important in terms of staff we have. So, and we don't like to rotate, you know, just for the sake of rotation. Like for example, on an audit firm, you have to have partner rotation. We don't need to do that because we're not under those same guys. So we can we the longer we can keep and gain that knowledge the better for the client. Yeah, >> absolutely. So Neil, final question for you here today. Um can you explain any ancillary services that Aventus provides that are applicable to Canadian companies whether public or private? >> Yeah. So again, if you strip away those four fundamental things that we discussed, I mean, yeah, those that think everybody's familiar with, but we do also our socks and internal control practice is really important. Um and what's important about that is that is a requirement obviously that companies have but just in general building a good internal control environment for companies you have to have specialty on right and that's why we don't like to do anything where we can't own it and lead it like we're not a tax firm because if you can't just have a few people and do tax you got to own it so we can own that another thing is TAZ transaction advisory services so for transaction advisory services that's M&A you know due diligence integration quality of earnings and we uh that's very important of our practice as well because uh whether it be all three for an engagement or one of those that's very important because that's not that's that's required for our private equity funded portfolio company clients because they don't necessarily need an audit or may not yet but they need to have that level of robust services provided and then and then um I would say embedded with I think it's important is that you know this whole CFO function is actually is actually it's not it's easy to get you know distracted with knowing okay we do the technical accounting and we'll do the IPO prep and all that but there's so many things embedded with the role of what we do as embedded finance professionals from you know forecasting and budget preparation and financial and scenario analysis and KPI design and you know ERP reporting um you know interfacing with board and board preparation for board interfacing with shareholders and how we can prepare for shareholder meetings you know, how to sort of lead some of those aspects. So, there's so many things that that the analytics side as well that you can truly be a strategic CFO and our team has done that. It's not like they advise companies. Everybody in our team has actually been on the company side and done that work. So, they know what it's like if they're a CFO having to make a payroll and the stress and they know that even though they could read about it and feel it from a client, they know what that's like and they know what these clients needs are. So it's just it's just really embedding ourselves in and in in terms of the holistic aspect of everything we do in the office of the CFO. >> Uh to close us out here today, where can our audience go and find more information about Aventus? >> Uh you know obviously go to our website and our website always contains you know I think what is important takeaways for anybody seeing any maybe company's website but there's always about that layer you can peel away by having a conversation. So go to website, get in touch with me. My vcard is on there, you know, and and just I'm always happy to grab a call just so I can clarify and like to help company. I like to discuss with them their needs. May not be a fit for us. They may be needing something else we don't provide. That's something totally different or there we get companies coming to us saying, "Can you I need an audit." We say, "We're not an auditor, but we we help them find one and we're not getting paid for that. We don't care. We want to help these companies." So maybe down the road they say they need help on something. So just reach out. It's always great to pick up the phone. >> Very cool. Neil, thank you so much for joining me today. really do appreciate it and thank you again for sponsoring the event and uh look forward to >> we'll see you next week. >> Yep. See you soon. >> Okay. >> All right. Sounds good. Take care.
VIRTUAL KEYNOTE Q&A with Neil Reithinger, Managing Partner at Eventus Advisory Group
Summary
Transcript
Welcome to the Planet Micro Cap Showcase Toronto in partnership with Micro Cap Club. I'm your host, Robert Craft, and joining me for this virtual keynote Q&A is Neil Riinger. He's the founder and managing partner at Adventist Advisory Group. Neil, thank you for joining me today. How you doing? >> I'm doing pretty good. How about you? Oh, good to see you. >> We're getting after it as usual. Um, but look, we wanted to invite you to do this virtual keynote because, you know, one, I always love to hear your insights on, you know, what's going on, not just with Adventist, but, you know, how it relates to the macro and everything that's going on in the markets. But at the same time, you know what? We wanted this opportunity for you to also give folks a better understanding as to what's going what Aventus does, how they can, how you guys can help, all that good stuff. So my first question then for you you know what would you say is the most succinct explanation of what Aventus does? >> Well we are we serve the office of the CFO. So we are we bring embedded financial operators and technical accounting experts into high growth companies to build financial frameworks to you know systems and strategies at scale. Okay. Whether it be core accounting and controllership or to strategic finance, IPO, M&A, we lead to build the finance function that companies wish they had before the pressure hit. And often in our indust, there's a term called fractional CFO work, which is thrown around. And we really don't like to use that. It's it's an easy quick term to say what a company what what a firm would do for companies. But the problem with it is is it doesn't feel like it's embedded. And in fact, what we do is very embedded. And in doing what we do, we have to um bring in uh expertise and people that have been there and done that and can really help companies scale. So we have a job to do and certainly that may seem very matterof fact and what that job is. It could be very quantitative from a finite beginning and end but at the end of the day it's a very embedded role. We have to make them feel like we're a part of their team. Okay. >> Very good. So what what crit what criteria are important to Aventist when choosing to represent a company? Well, there's usually I kind of separate it into two categories. So, you've got those engagements that are finite in scope and term time that are very taskoriented and then you have those others that are that are ongoing and where you have to sort of adapt to the changing needs of the clients as they scale. Right? So, for the first it's pretty pretty binary. You you you're hired for a job to do. You're you're kind of a number, right? You have to, you know, obviously be a domain expert in what you're doing. You're hired for that job. you're going to you work out the economics for both parties and there's a beginning and an end and you hope that as a result of that there's a relationship that's built where they want to continue using but those are those are those are roles we have that we're going to all do that's fine that we can do but it's the second one that's interesting is where they need us for as a sort of a partner because it's not a finite beginning there's a there's there's a there's a beginning to it with a scope but that scope may change and adapt because we're working with them as a scale right so and then the ending we don't which could be continuous. We've had clients for four or five years or longer that simply need us because we're growing as they're we're growing with them as they're growing and we're their embedded finance team. So in a way they're different because it's not just how much does it cost, what are you doing, but they really appreciate what we do and want us for our leadership and so we guide them to adapt to their changing needs and that's a different relationship. So those are there a completely two different sets. So we look for, you know, kind of look in those two areas, but specifically for the second, we look for the ones that can really appreciate and understand that. Okay. We're we're ready to do the job and be a number, but we look we enjoy the the relationships where we can be a partner with them. >> Understood. Understood. So look, we're doing this event in Toronto. You know, yeah, we're talking virtually. People watch this online, whatnot, but you know, as a USbased firm, how does your expertise apply to the markets in Canada? and what enables you to differentiate yourself from some of the other similar firms in the Canadian market? >> Uh, well, the the the fundamentals, you know, the fundamentals of business don't change. You've got you've got you need to have sound financial governance. You've got to have processes. You got to have business strategy. You need to have, you know, analytics and largely good financial reporting and so on. That's the same universally no matter what. So I think it's it's where the nuances come in that a company who's assisting and working with companies in Canada can use that chassis of the table stakes fundamental work but also know those nuances. You've got you've got you know the registration statement requirements for example for a company going public in the US are this and you've got your S1's and you got uh and then in Canada you have a prospectus and it's different. There's different rules to follow. You've got, you know, the the different rules that and the requirements for listing for NASDAQ and for NIC American and the US and then of course you got TSX, TSXV or CSC in Canada. The requirements are different. There's nuances there to understand. Um there's also um like auditor requirements. You know what what does it take for a company that is actually maybe US doiciled that wants to list in Canada and will certain auditors be able to do that because they're not licensed in Canada as opposed to one that's l that's doiciled in Canada wants to list in the US can they do that and some as you start to weed out who the who the providers are that that can be used. So it's really a matter of you know you have to have boots on the ground to do that and we do have boots on the ground in Toronto. We have uh uh we have Ira heads up our our our practice in Canada who has that it's those nuances that matter like our team in the US we can do efers and we can do US gap we can do Canadian gap we can do local we can do all for whether it be Canadian or international companies but with that respect with respect to understanding and having that extra edge with understanding the the the securities and the rules behind some of these registration statements and how these companies have to navigate whether listing there or c cross crosslisting we have to have that edge So you have to have boots on the ground, you know, >> 100%. So yeah, >> look, it may seem obvious to some, but to many others who may not know, h how is Aventus different from than an audit firm? >> Well, first of all, we're a lot more fun to work with. That's for sure. So uh uh we've been I actually do I actually do a panel to help students at the at the University of Arizona. And one panel they went they were looking at us and one of the students came in and said you guys seem a lot more fun as the consultants than the auditors and all. It's kind of funny that observation but but you can't obviously as a as someone coming out of college become into consulting. You have to actually start somewhere. But but you like anything you have to quote unquote cut your teeth somewhere. But the difference is is independence. You know we are we are not independent. We are not doing assurance. We're not doing any type of assurance work which involves audits, reviews or compilations. We don't do that. We're not we're not we're not peerreviewed piece. We don't want to do that. We are on the side of the client. We have to prepare. We have to deliver things on a silver platter for the auditors so that they can do their work. And there's a clear distinction there that wasn't as clear uh number of years ago, you know, when before particularly Sarbain Oxley as well as auditors could just sort of help clients in doing so. can't do that anymore and that's been that way for years now. They have to need they need some they need to make sure that they can they can do their job as auditors and need to make sure the client does their job in terms of preparing and a lot of times clients need help with that. Now there is a there is there's a the word collaboration could be used and that's often you know something that is uh what depending on the auditor they could say we can't collaborate but there's definitely a collaborative nature that an auditor can have. They just can't answer the question for the client. If you have a position you want to take, you have to present that position so the auditor can opine on that position, right? So in that regard, there has to be that clear separation and that wall between the two. So and we don't want to be that role anyway. We're we like to be advisers. We like to be, you know, consoliaries to companies. We like to do what we do in the office of the CFO. So it's not our role, nor will it ever be. That's not something we want to do. >> You know, you don't want to be the Tom Hayden. I mean, come on. Uh who doesn't who doesn't love the Tommy Hayden? So what what role does Aventus then serve in the IPO process for both US and Canadian issuers? >> Well, we're we you know we do all the table stakes functions, right? We're going to do audit prep. We're going to do corporate governance and design and implementation. We're going to do IPO prep. We're going to do financial operations and accounting. You know, all those things that people hate to do and they need. But I think uh you know, so we could we could get into that and so on. But I think in general um you know listeners to this kind of know what that is and they know generally speaking kind of those areas in accounting and how that can expand into the other areas of corporate governance and finance. But I think the key area is is is leadership and planning. You know we we understand what the process is. We know who the constituents are that a company needs to be able to be successful. We know what the technical and the nuances are with respect to filings and how long it takes, you know, like what the review period's going to be. If a company's in Canada is doing an F1 as a foreign private issuer or if they're do redisting and they do an S1, we know the process it takes. We know the role the attorney has, the role the banker has, we know the role obviously where the audit where everybody has to come in and play to actually make that work. you know, we're familiar with if we have to, we can stay in our little lane and and do financial statements and footnotes and we can work on the NDNA. Uh or if there isn't necessarily the leadership on that, we can expand that role so that we know that okay, maybe we need to refer them in on a particular auditor if they don't have one already or refer them in because we know and the bankers as well. It's just it just depends on what point and where the ball is on the field that we can come in. The key is we have best practices in the whole process and we know at what point some of these things have to be initiated, right? So I think that's important to have the right leadership and you're not sort of a deer in the headlights when you do your piece and then everything else and something's not getting addressed that you can step up and do that for the client. And I think that's essential with regard to any any capital raise, any IPO, any audit a company is going through, what have you, to be able to do that. >> So in essence, you're the Tom Hagen for the helping companies through that. By the way, it's Hagen. My dad's going to kill me if I said you heard me say Hayden. I was a Hagen. >> My goodness. >> Well, it's like the Forest know. Yeah, I know. You have to He'll be upsetting you for that. I know. >> Um but at least he knows all the holidays on the Jewish calendar now. Before he was forgetting about that on some of his we have we have that locked in for sure. >> But you have to know the big picture just like anything. You're big. You're you you're a domain expert. your subject matter expert, whatever you want to call, and you have a role to do, but at the same time, you got to kind of know how it all fits together, you know, because sometimes a client doesn't necessarily have that guidance that you assume they have at some point along the way. And you got to be willing to pick up a shovel and answer that question and know what it is or at least know how to find it pretty quickly. >> Okay. >> 100%. So, >> yeah. >> Does Aventus remain engaged with the company throughout the preIPO and post process? Yeah, we we will we will we will scale and stick with the company through the duration as long as they need the services we offer because oftent times as they're growing and scaling, you know, the manager is trying to focus on the growing the business. They got to grow the revenue. They got to focus on strategy. And the reality is what it takes to build out an internal team to scale the office of the CFO to scale that whole that whole village as it's as you it takes a village to run that office is a lot. You have to have qualified professionals on the financial operations side. You have to have qualified professionals on the technical and reporting side. You have to have qualified professionals as you have to engage and do internal controls in corporate governance as that scales. You have to have qualified professionals to help you with certain strategy in terms of your business analytics in terms of what to look for to scale your business. It's really tough to build that out quickly in the initial stages. And that's why too uh for for for for public companies, you know, we can really help any company at any size. And admittedly, as a company gets very big, they're going to want the optics of maybe a large consulting arm of a big four. We get that. That's just part of life that way you get. the work is is the same but can be much more robust for larger companies and then they start to build that out for themselves because they have they want to have that in-house but the truth of the matter is there is a there's there's a bit of a void in real qualified finance professionals too you know even even you know kids coming out of college don't want to do it as much because they think it's boring when actually it's a great profession to get into because it can lead to so many things you can be a CFO and be background of accounting you can be you know you know investment banker and be background it's a you know, that's an unfortunate thing for the profession. Therefore, that pendulum's swinging the other way now based on some of the educational protocols that are occurring. But in terms of, you know, and as as clients and professionals go out and they do and they get involved in the field and they become may maybe they they they segue into other parts of the profession, the the level of people that are able to do the work is is not necessarily there's many smart people out there, but not as plentiful as you would like on some companies as they're scaling. So they need that outside help, you know, and they'll find it eventually as they grow and have the inter. But some companies don't want that either. So we need to hang with them not only for the IPO, but as they're doing their reporting, you know, of course in the US we call that the 34 act filings and so on. Of course, as they're doing their filings in Canada as well on Cedar. So we have to make sure that, you know, we're able to be domain experts in all those areas to stay with them as long as they need us. Yeah. >> Very good. All right. And do you work you do work with or do you work with private companies as well? Yeah, you know, private companies are actually critical to our firm mission and you know, our our firm strategy because they're first of all, there's a lot more private companies than public companies or even companies that want to go public. But in fact, you know, if you really strip out the public aspect of IPO prep and reporting and Sarbain Oxley or internal controls are left with the core fundament, you're left with those core fundamentals of a business, right? And that what I was getting to before is you got to have good financial processes and FPNA and business analytics and you got to have strategy and capital markets advisory because some a lot of our a lot of our private companies are in the process and they're raising money as well whether they're doing with private credit whether it's they're they're they're raising equity whether it's commercial debt whatever it may be we have to be advisers on that. So we have actually a pretty robust private company practice and a number of companies more in fact because there's just simply more needs that are out there from a variety of scale. So you could have we'll help companies anywhere from startups to we have billion-dollar clients. We're working on a subsidiary or part of them. As the companies get bigger, it's maybe more of a special project because they do have a team. But you'd be surprised on some, you know, middle market private companies the help they need. you think, oh, they've got a a finance team already and they're able to handle all their internal reporting or even basic accounting or when it comes to their business analytics and their metrics. That is that is that that assumption definitely can't be made because there's a lot of companies that do need that help as they're scaling. And again, they may not be able to find that that that talent right away because their CFO may be a great CFO and be a controller, but that that actual strategy and and that comes into play is something that our team has that they'll need help with. So very big big important part of our practice and then of course some of those want to become public as well and that of course that happens but that not that's not the plan. The plan is just to help them and there's a small small percentage that maybe at some point will go public but not in any way shape or form is that the intent. >> Yeah. >> Very very good. So what what what is the expertise of your team and how are they staff for engagements? Are they full-time and do you rotate staff on engagements? Yeah, we well I'll get to the la we first of all do not rotate staff on engagements because we you lose that institutional knowledge and that momentum and that cadence. So um we there may be cases where staff goes on vacation gets sick in the case that someone might leave fortunately our turnover is low. You have to account for those things and we always have a backup for a client with respect to you know what other people on our team being familiar with that client mainly too with the director we have on our team. Every client has one of our leadership somebody from our leadership team a director and the way we function is we have two kind of we have directors come from sort of you look at two two parts financial operations directors those have primarily been CFOs and have run private companies and then those and then we have our uh SEC directors and that's those are those that have been CFOs of public companies and or engagement partners of audit firms that that it's a totally different specialty. So depending on what a client's needs are, um, we will staff accordingly. If it's primarily, if it's a private company, it's going to be primarily fin. They're going to not need the technical side as much, although they may need it for some things that they need financial statements because they have to report to the board or they have to report to a bank or their private lender or an equity partner. And then on the on the financial operations side, we'll staff accordingly. And they're all full-time. We don't do consultants. It doesn't work for us. Uh, it sometimes does on special circumstances that may involve the areas that might be a little bit outside of our domain to have them work with us while they're they're they're on on a certain special finite project. Let's say it has to do with some kind of, you know, consulting on human resources or consulting on some special area of tax or whatever that they do. So, but um but we have even from our cultural standpoint, we need a full-time team because we want to make it again as we're embedded dedicated with the client and make sure that they feel like it's part of their team and make sure that they're responsive and they're reacting to what we want them to do as a firm. Okay? And that's critically important in terms of staff we have. So, and we don't like to rotate, you know, just for the sake of rotation. Like for example, on an audit firm, you have to have partner rotation. We don't need to do that because we're not under those same guys. So we can we the longer we can keep and gain that knowledge the better for the client. Yeah, >> absolutely. So Neil, final question for you here today. Um can you explain any ancillary services that Aventus provides that are applicable to Canadian companies whether public or private? >> Yeah. So again, if you strip away those four fundamental things that we discussed, I mean, yeah, those that think everybody's familiar with, but we do also our socks and internal control practice is really important. Um and what's important about that is that is a requirement obviously that companies have but just in general building a good internal control environment for companies you have to have specialty on right and that's why we don't like to do anything where we can't own it and lead it like we're not a tax firm because if you can't just have a few people and do tax you got to own it so we can own that another thing is TAZ transaction advisory services so for transaction advisory services that's M&A you know due diligence integration quality of earnings and we uh that's very important of our practice as well because uh whether it be all three for an engagement or one of those that's very important because that's not that's that's required for our private equity funded portfolio company clients because they don't necessarily need an audit or may not yet but they need to have that level of robust services provided and then and then um I would say embedded with I think it's important is that you know this whole CFO function is actually is actually it's not it's easy to get you know distracted with knowing okay we do the technical accounting and we'll do the IPO prep and all that but there's so many things embedded with the role of what we do as embedded finance professionals from you know forecasting and budget preparation and financial and scenario analysis and KPI design and you know ERP reporting um you know interfacing with board and board preparation for board interfacing with shareholders and how we can prepare for shareholder meetings you know, how to sort of lead some of those aspects. So, there's so many things that that the analytics side as well that you can truly be a strategic CFO and our team has done that. It's not like they advise companies. Everybody in our team has actually been on the company side and done that work. So, they know what it's like if they're a CFO having to make a payroll and the stress and they know that even though they could read about it and feel it from a client, they know what that's like and they know what these clients needs are. So it's just it's just really embedding ourselves in and in in terms of the holistic aspect of everything we do in the office of the CFO. >> Uh to close us out here today, where can our audience go and find more information about Aventus? >> Uh you know obviously go to our website and our website always contains you know I think what is important takeaways for anybody seeing any maybe company's website but there's always about that layer you can peel away by having a conversation. So go to website, get in touch with me. My vcard is on there, you know, and and just I'm always happy to grab a call just so I can clarify and like to help company. I like to discuss with them their needs. May not be a fit for us. They may be needing something else we don't provide. That's something totally different or there we get companies coming to us saying, "Can you I need an audit." We say, "We're not an auditor, but we we help them find one and we're not getting paid for that. We don't care. We want to help these companies." So maybe down the road they say they need help on something. So just reach out. It's always great to pick up the phone. >> Very cool. Neil, thank you so much for joining me today. really do appreciate it and thank you again for sponsoring the event and uh look forward to >> we'll see you next week. >> Yep. See you soon. >> Okay. >> All right. Sounds good. Take care.