Kalos LLP is a Canadian boutique transaction advisory firm specializing in financial due diligence, business valuation, financial modelling, and transaction support for mergers and acquisitions. The firm advises private equity firms, family offices, search funds, public companies, and private businesses across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
You started your career at EY before moving into investment banking and then co-founding Kalos in 2019. What convinced you there was an opportunity to build something different?
When I was within the Big Four firms, we worked on transactions throughout North America with enterprise values of $1 billion to $5 billion.
It felt like an opportunity to create the best of both worlds: large-firm sophistication and bench strength packaged into a boutique with the nimbleness to serve the middle and lower-middle market. Growing up with a single mother who became an entrepreneur, I also developed a deep appreciation for founder-led businesses. As Canada's "silver tsunami" of business succession continues, we felt there was a significant gap in the market for transaction advisory support at that level.
Many founder-led businesses sit in that underrepresented middle ground between very large companies and very small businesses. Why, and is it changing?
I think it is changing. We're seeing greater professionalization because people are becoming aware of the opportunity, and that isn't unique to Canada. Larger transactions attract headlines, but much of the activity occurs in the middle market. Many M&A professionals believe the succession wave people have talked about for years is finally starting to crest.
Some private equity firms we work with receive dozens of opportunities every week, so entrepreneurs have to think carefully about how they position themselves as quality companies rather than simply one of many options. At the same time, uncertainty has become a constant. We've seen greater use of earnouts, vendor take-backs and other structures to bridge valuation gaps, while search funds and entrepreneurship-through-acquisition models have emerged as a meaningful buyer group. Despite tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, deal activity has remained resilient.
Is there a typical profile of the company that Kalos works with, or are you largely sector agnostic?
We're reasonably sector agnostic. I often equate financial due diligence to a home inspection. Following COVID, capital moved into defensive sectors such as healthcare where demand was expected to remain resilient.
What happened, however, was that demand eventually outpaced supply and valuations became quite frothy. In areas such as dental clinics, pharmacies and veterinary clinics, multiples reached the mid-teens and even the low twenties, leading investors to become more selective about business quality. Roughly one-third of our deals are Western Canadian, one-third Eastern Canadian and one-third U.S.-based. Around 80% fall between $25 million and $250 million in value, spanning technology, healthcare, industrials, manufacturing, energy and retail.
From the perspective of someone who advises investors on deploying capital, is the way Canada is viewed by investors changing?
From a U.S. perspective, the impact has been limited. Most investors aren't making long-term decisions based on a four-year political cycle. What we've generally seen is investors stress-testing downside scenarios. If they can still generate acceptable returns in a bearish case, they are willing to proceed.
While there may be tariff headwinds, there is also a foreign exchange tailwind, and many investors are taking a seven-to-ten-year view rather than focusing on the next year or two. We have seen some U.S. funds look to Canada because their domestic market is more competitive when it comes to sourcing and winning deals. More broadly, there is an enormous amount of dry powder in the system that needs to be deployed. We are also seeing growing interest from Europe, with some funds preferring to allocate North American capital into Canada rather than the U.S. There has always been interest, but now there is more impetus to act on it and diversify.
What do you think is the biggest risk to Canada capitalising on this moment?
From a capital deployment perspective, it's making sure we have a regulatory environment that investors can feel comfortable with. You can be billions of dollars into a project and still not have put a shovel in the ground. That sends a broader signal to institutional investors that the goalposts might move.
International investors weren't concerned about high regulatory or environmental standards. Many deploy capital into jurisdictions with very high standards.
As long as investors understand the rules of the game and can make money by playing by those rules, they will invest.
What they cannot have happen is the rules changing while they are trying to play. We need consistent policy, efficient regulation and an environment that encourages long-term investment.
Kalos has grown rapidly since 2019 while pursuing a different model from larger advisory firms. What does success look like over the next two years?
I’m most proud of the team we've assembled: being able to live our values, empower our team and build a culture where people genuinely want to come to work. I didn't expect us to become this large this quickly or have the opportunity to serve the clients and size of transactions that we do today. So much of that is a testament to the team we've built. There were pain points within some of the larger firms where we felt there was an opportunity to do things differently and create a home for people who love what they do, just not where they do it.
Looking ahead, our vision is to be seen as the top integrated transaction advisory platform in North America. Clients often come to us with a problem that touches multiple areas, and as an independent firm we can build a bespoke solution around that need. Clients are tired of the silos that often exist in larger firms, and the opportunity to be truly integrated is what we think differentiates us.
As Kalos has grown, how have you approached scaling the business while maintaining the qualities that made the firm successful in the first place?
One of the biggest differentiators is that we do not have a traditional audit and compliance side to the business. Audit and public issuer work brings increased regulation, independence requirements and infrastructure. By remaining focused, we're able to stay agile. We also don't do M&A advisory. Our focus is purely financial due diligence and valuation, which allows us to partner with dozens of investment banks throughout Canada and the United States that focus on M&A advisory but don't provide transaction advisory from an accounting perspective. Even as we scale, we'll maintain that agility and culture by staying focused on what we do best.
We endeavour to be partners, not just advisors, and many clients describe us that way. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we've lived many of the challenges our clients face, which gives us a different perspective when working with founders and owner-operators. We see ourselves as an extension of our clients at the deal table, and if we can build trust with the entrepreneur on the other side of a transaction and improve the diligence experience, it's better for everyone involved and ultimately helps create a better deal.
What was the inspiration behind the name ‘Kalos’?
It was somewhat an exercise in frustration. We had come up with a few names we liked and quickly discovered that the domain names had already been taken. I have some Greek heritage, so I started looking through Greek words and eventually landed on "Kalos," which means "good." I liked the connection to being a good steward of capital, doing a good deal, being a good advisor and being good in the community.
When I dug deeper, I discovered it had historically been used to describe warriors who held themselves to the highest level of integrity on the battlefield. That resonated with what we were trying to build: independent rigour, confidence and stewardship within transactions. Then, completely by chance, my family reminded me that I had been on a swim team called Kalos as a child. I had completely forgotten. I still keep my old Kalos swim team T-shirt in my office today.
