True North benefits from the 30+ years of mergers and acquisitions experiences of its founder, Pat McDonough, and the operational and transaction integration experience of senior advisor Tony Allott. We pride ourselves on providing clients with uniformly high standards of excellence.
Our focus is to work with select clients and provide advice on all strategic matters that clients entrust us with, including acquisitions, mergers, sales, divestitures, spin-offs, restructurings, and recapitalizations. Or, just general advice on matters that executives need to navigate through on a day to day basis. We strive to be fully integrated with our clients through every step of the transaction, from potential target analysis, to pre transaction preparation, through execution, and even offering experienced advice for integration , when other advisors would consider their assignment complete.
True North was founded on providing clients best in class creative and innovative thought around transaction ideas and transaction structures, outstanding analytics and presentation of those complicated analytics in a clear way. We provide expert assistance with negotiating and executing transaction agreements, able assistance, as necessary, with transaction messaging to important investor constituencies, and having an enjoyable experience in the midst of an often times stressful transaction timeline.
What our clients are saying
“True North came up to speed on our company and industry very quickly, asking and answering the important questions. Within a short time, working with them stopped feeling like an advisory engagement. The experience was one of seamlessly extending our team with smart, hard-working and low-ego colleagues who were willing to dive into whatever the situation required without limitation. Deals are tough and working with people you know are with you 100% means everything. That’s what we’ve found with True North.”
“With True North we got excellent advice from experienced bankers who were fully focused on our transaction, and available 24/7. The strategic and tactical advice was solid and the execution flawless. True North knows how to get deals done, and get results for clients”.
“We have worked with the principals of True North and found their advice to be insightful and their performance/execution highly professional. Their ability to identify the issues and find solutions is impressive. We are looking forward to a long-term relationship with True North.”
“With True North Capital Advisors, we benefited from great advice from highly experienced bankers, who could take the time to really understand the unique needs of our business. This dedicated focus in combination with the talents of a small, hand picked staff and a total lack of conflicting organizational priorities, resulted in significant value provided during our recent transaction.
The acquired management team in our most recent deal went out of their way to tell us how impressive our team from True North Capital Advisors was as compared with the representatives of the other bidders and the sellers own advisors.
True North Capital Advisors proved the perfect balance of sound, experienced advice, deep analytical support and active involvement in all aspects of our transaction. We look forward to the next opportunity to work with them, and in many ways feel they are an extension of our own Corporate Development team.”
Selected innovative founder advisory transactions predating True North
- Merger of Jefferson Smurfit Corporation and Stone Container
- Smurfit Stone $1bn acquisition of St Laurent Paperboard
- Georgia Pacific’s $350mm acquisition of Domtar’s gypsum business
- Georgia Pacific’s $730mm acquisition of Chesapeake Tissue through a leveraged partnership
- Georgia Pacific’s $3.3bn letter stock spinoff of the Timber Company
- Georgia Pacific’s $4bn Reverse Morris Trust merger of Timber Company into Plum Creek
- $1.5bn Sale of Georgia Pacific’s Uncoated Freesheet business
- Sale of Weyerhaeuser’s gypsum business
- $5bn Merger of Westvaco and Mead Corporation
- Inco’s $10.6bn acquisition of Falconbridge (Inco subsequently sold to Vale)
- Sale of Noranda Aluminum to Apollo for $1.2bn
- $1bn Split off of Martin Marietta Materials from Lockheed
- Weyerhaeuser‘s $900mm acquisition of P&G pulp mills
- Sale of Kimberly Clark’s baby wipe business to P&G
- Silgan’s $4.2bn acquisition of Graham Packaging (subsequently outbid post announcement)
- $2bn Merger of Crompton Corporation and Great Lakes Chemical
- Sale of Wise Metals for $1.4bn
- General Motors’ $3.5bn acquisition of Americredit
- General Motors’ $4.2bn acquisition of Ally Financial’s International auto finance business
- General Motors’ sale of 8.5% stake in Ally Financial for $900mm
