JEGI CLARITY has spent 37 years advising other companies on their M&A. So it has been a little different for the firm this past year orchestrating its own merger.
“It’s very exciting,” said Wilma Jordan, founder and CEO North America of JEGI CLARITY, “and a great opportunity for both firms.”
The news broke yesterday that JEGI CLARITY has signed a merger agreement with Leonis Partners, a 12-year-old advisory firm specializing in software, fintech, and technology transactions. Upon closing, which should happen in the second or third quarter of 2025, the company will be known as JEGI CLARITY LEONIS (JCL).
After speaking with Jordan, it’s clear that Leonis brings key assets to the JEGI CLARITY knowledge, experience, and customer base.
“They’re software and tech specialists,” Jordan said. “They do a lot of fintech and payments, as well as enterprise types of software deals. And as you well know, particularly with the evolution of AI, that [type of work] moves every sector. So we love having the exposure of software and technology to our sectors and having the ability to—say in martech, for example—pitch together a martech software deal because most do have software components.”
Given all that, Jordan said the two firms “fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, with no conflicts and no internal competitiveness. All the people will stay on from both firms. Their firm is younger than ours. And we have certain things on the infrastructure side that they haven’t developed yet. But they have a state-of-the-art business development team and are headed by a wonderful, very savvy banker.”
That’s Robert Koven, founder & managing partner of Leonis Partners, who will co-lead JCL with Scott Mozarsky, a managing director at JEGI CLARITY. Doug Stowe will serve as president & COO, with Jordan becoming executive chair. The new company will be headquartered in New York, with a team of 100 worldwide, including a major presence in London, Sydney, and Boston.
Said Koven in the release: “JEGI CLARITY’s legacy and industry leadership are second to none. Over months of planning, it became evident that our firms share a culture of excellence, integrity, and client-first values. By combining our expertise, we create an even stronger platform with broader industry coverage and deeper market insights, ensuring superior outcomes for our clients.”
Jordan said that she and Kelsey Kovachik, VP of marketing, will continue to “evolve our marketing of the firm. I’m not going to lead deals in the future, which will be the first time in 37 years that I haven’t done deals. I closed what turned out to be my last deal in December. We have to really focus on where we’re going and what the strategy for the firm is.
“It’s a whole different ballgame today because everything’s so much more sophisticated technology-wise, so much more evolved,” Jordan continued. “Everything is data driven now, and it’s been fun to watch that evolution in my career.”
Jordan sees a big 2025 for B2B M&A, based on all the pent-up capital sitting out there. “There’s $2.1 trillion in private-equity capital, and we’re doing a little research on that for your [BIMS 2025] conference at the end of March,” she said. “Of that, $500 billion was in funds from 2020 and 2021, and [PE firms] only have five years to invest, or they have to release the LPs of their obligation to give them money. And so we think that’s going to be a big driver for buying this year.”
Jordan sees events as a big part of that M&A equation this year. “I would say events are a beautiful business model, and [Informa chief executive] Stephen Carter is speaking at our upcoming conference, which is resilience redefined,” she said. “I remember he called me at my farm in late April, early May of 2020. I was in Tennessee; New York had been shut down. He had lost half his annual revenues. No one knew where the market was going to go, and we spent a couple of hours just talking about events, and the sturdiness of that business model.
“Because there’s no more effective way to make good commerce and business in the marketplace than going to an event, a trade show, or a BIMS conference and meeting people. You just can’t do it remotely. You have to be there face to face.”
Getting back to the merger, Jordan said that they knew two or three years ago that they wanted the firm to get bigger.
“The year 2023 was not a great one for M&A,” she said. “We were nicely profitable, but we didn’t grow that year. Then 2024 turned out to be better, but we still knew we wanted growth. And we knew we wanted a software and technology component to this firm.
“Robert is very energetic. When I met him and sat down at our first breakfast together, he said, ‘I really want to grow my firm. We watched your firm for many years and tried to copy some of the things you guys have done.’ And it was just one of those serendipitous meetings where all things came together and checked all the boxes.”
Wilma Jordan, CEO, North America, JEGI CLARITY, will moderate M&A Outlook 2025 at BIMS 2025 with speakers Craig Fuller, CEO and founder, FreightWaves, and Sam Halls, partner, Clover Fund, Shamrock Capital. See all of the amazing BIMS 2025 speakers here.
