Relay Transition Partners Launched to Provide Best in Class Sell-Side Advisory Services to Small and Medium Sized Businesses in Canada

Vancouver, BC – Fort Capital Partners (“Fort Capital”) today announces the launch of Relay Transition Partners (“Relay”), Canada’s newest advisory firm dedicated to the sale of small and medium sized businesses (“SMBs”).  Beginning with its first two partners based in Vancouver, Relay will seek to grow by adding professionals from coast to coast, to become a leading advisor to SMBs across Canada.

Relay builds on the experience and infrastructure of Fort Capital, one of Canada’s leading boutique investment banking firms.  With offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, Fort Capital’s 45+ investment banking professionals deliver advice on merger, acquisition and divestiture assignments and equity, debt and credit formation for mid to large private and public companies. 

The launch of Relay represents an acknowledgment that SMBs, and the families and entrepreneurs behind them, deserve resources dedicated to their specific needs and opportunities.  The work to prepare and market an SMB can often differ as compared to larger companies.  Similarly, the universe of buyers for such businesses, and their process to assess and negotiate transactions, can shape the sale process in unique ways.  Working together in a coordinated fashion, Relay and Fort Capital are set to effectively assess and bridge these differences by bringing the right team of professionals to the sale of any business based in Canada, marketed to buyers based domestically, cross-border and around the world.

The initial partners of Relay are Axel Christiansen and Grant Wallace, two well known and highly regarded advisors with a focus on the sale of small and medium sized businesses in Western Canada. 

Axel joins Relay from Baker Tilly, an international accounting firm where he served as Managing Director in its corporate finance division.  He was with Renaissance Merger & Acquisitions when that firm joined Baker Tilly.  He brings over 25 years of experience serving SMBs on sell-side transactions and capital formation assignments. Axel was a founding member of Vancity Capital, a division of Vancity Savings Credit Union, and held the role of Managing Director for BDC Capital’s mezzanine financing group covering BC and the Yukon.

Grant was most recently Managing Director with CIBC’s Mid-Marketing Investment Banking team.  In his role over the past 12 years, he led this group’s business in British Columbia.  Over his career as an investment banker, private equity investor and corporate development professional, including seven years in the corporate finance group at Ernst & Young, Grant has led transactions spanning a broad range of industries, primarily working with private company owners and entrepreneurs.

Relay will add partners and associates in Vancouver and other cities as highly qualified, independently minded professionals are identified.  As an independent platform for M&A practitioners, Relay provides its entrepreneurial partners with a unique proposition: high-level execution support, a network of partners with whom to collaborate across the country, and an unprecedented level of autonomy.

“Fort Capital is proud to be supporting the growth of and team at Relay.  We have long believed that there is a better model to support owners of small and medium-sized businesses, while at the same time improving the quality of career and compensation a talented transaction advisor can enjoy”, comments Dave Bustos, Managing Partner at Fort Capital.  “There is a wide range of quality in all M&A advice; we have found that to be particularly true of the advisors that support small and medium sized businesses.  The owners of SMBs deserve to work with professionals that share the same levels of passion, effort and skill that they put into building their own businesses, and Relay will curate and cultivate this within its partners.”

Mike Burtch, Managing Partner at Fort Capital, adds, “We will mirror the success we have had at Fort Capital by providing a platform for investment bankers to work closely, and in strong alignment, with our clients. Relay will support its partners with talented support professionals, a broad network of relationships, technology, and back-office infrastructure.  By removing conflicting interests, administrative burdens and management responsibilities, while increasing transparency and accountability, Relay’s partners can spend all their time doing what they do and love best – working with entrepreneurial business owners. The sale of a business is deeply personal and emotional, and financially critical to our clients.  Our partners embrace that.”

Relay Transition Partners is open for business.  Please check us out at www.relaytp.ca.

Media Contact:

Morna Sileika

Chief Operating Officer

(604) 992-9066