Announcer 0:00 From Los Angeles, this is the Echelon Radio Network Frank Mottek 0:04 Here we are at The Original Mixer and with me now is Brian Rabinovitz, the director of business development on the west coast for Citrin Cooperman, Los Angeles, put this whole thing together with Echelon Business Development. I'm Frank Mottek from 790 KABC. And Brian, it's fantastic to be with you. Congratulations on a really fabulous, energetic event here tonight. Brian Rabinovitz 0:30 Thank you. I'm so amazed on the turnout that we had the professionals that we have here that various industries that are all in it exceeded my expectations tonight. Frank Mottek 0:39 Tremendous energy in this room here and mega schmoozing going on, we can say and dealmaking appears to be happening here and what a great mix of professionals tell us, Brian, how you put all this together. Brian Rabinovitz 0:53 Interesting story about 20 something years ago, I moved out here from New York, I was invited to a ten-person Monday night dinner group, and this metamorphosis from that we then all of a sudden, about 15-20 people at dinner, we would do events at queues on the west side of LA, we moved it all around. Then we started doing certain events at Trader Vic's, the X Bar on the west side, and the Luxe on Sunset. We've been doing an event like this here for about 12 years, they were so gracious to us. Frank Mottek 1:24 That's great. And certainly at the right time here with people eager to get back out. There's no substitute for a real social networking site. And certainly we're seeing that here. Brian Rabinovitz 1:34 It's wonderful. COVID was a big detractor to networking. A lot of people learned how to do virtual networking. But you look at this event tonight, we have about almost 300 people, and everybody's just socializing and so happy to be together. And to me, the best way to get to know somebody is face to face. And you for me when I'm here, all I tried to do is bring people together that could be mutually beneficial to each other. And so many deals are getting done tonight. And it's incredible. Frank Mottek 2:04 That's fantastic. Nobody's on mute here tonight, that's for sure. It's great that we're off of zoom finally, and really enjoying this kind of an event. So tell us about some of the membership here. The various businesses represented and how people can get involved with Echelon first of all. Brian Rabinovitz 2:21 Tonight is just an amazing eclectic group. We have everybody from family offices, venture capital, investment, banking, accounting, other finance professionals, we have business brokers, we have marketers, it's just a great group of people who can work together and do business together. That is the whole background of Echelon. Echelon tries to bring a group of like-minded people together from different industries, to get to know each other and be more of a mastermind group. We only try to get a group of about 16 people together. And you get to know that group, you get to build the front side and back side of the business card. And that's what makes it work. Because who do you want to do business with? People that you're friends with people that you trust? And that's a major factor. Frank Mottek 3:13 That's great. And what an interesting mix, you got bourbon and brownies and all kinds of interesting features about this evening. Brian Rabinovitz 3:22 It's incredible. What are you enjoying tonight there? Frank Mottek 3:27 Both the bourbon and the brownies as a matter of fact. So that's been a real pleasure. And and you've been involved in a lot of the bigger business events and groups here and and certainly in the M&A world. Tell us how you see things happening on the business frontier and what is the buzz here tonight and at the business events that you've been attended? Brian Rabinovitz 3:46 Interesting question. The buzz is optimism. People are really hoping that things change. The supply chain has the problem that we had has dissipated a little bit. But there are a lot of other factors that are causing businesses to have difficulties, especially on the interest rate side. But I feel optimistic by the end of the fourth quarter or the beginning of 2024 that things will really change Frank Mottek 4:14 And we gratefully acknowledge Citrin Cooperman for supporting this great event and tell us what's happening on the M&A front and what kind of deals are applying nowadays. Brian Rabinovitz 4:24 Interesting. The deal front is a little bit slow. It's getting back. There's been a lot of hiccups, I guess we could say certain industries, consumer retail, the multiples have gone down. Some industries like healthcare are doing very well. But the marketplace we're hoping gets a little bit of a push in the next six to nine months. Frank Mottek 4:52 Tell us what is happening on real estate. Commercial Real Estate seems to be distressed at the moment especially in in downtown La from what we've seen and and what kind of deals relating to real estate are you seeing? Brian Rabinovitz 5:05 In the real estate market, I'm seeing a lot of activity. And basically what's happening is there's a lot of money on private equity and private equity sitting on the sidelines that is trying to get in and they're finding their deals. What happened during COVID, which was very interesting is prices went through the roof, no one would have expected that when March of 2020 came along, everybody thought the worst, and the economy did exceptionally well for a couple years. Right now, the people that kept their money in the sidelines are finding some bargains out there and are doing really well. For the seller side, though, they're not getting the prices that they thought they would get a few years ago. Frank Mottek 5:46 All right, we saw that mega merger deal in the supermarket business. Do you see any other big deals on the horizon? Here in 2023? Brian Rabinovitz 5:55 No, I don't have my crystal ball right now. But I think there's going to be a lot of activity coming on at the end of 2023. Frank Mottek 6:02 Healthcare, again? Brian Rabinovitz 6:04 healthcare will be an industry that, again, is something that is very important to our country. And there is a lot of backing between both sides of our government trying to initiate more affordable health care and other things for our country. Frank Mottek 6:24 All right, I was just at the LA EDC event of they're still trying to make L.A. more business friendly. Certainly, it's been a, an uphill fight for a lot of businesses here in California, and especially here in Southern California facing high taxes and regulation and all that, again, among the movers and shakers, you talk to here and other events, what's the mood out there at the moment? Brian Rabinovitz 6:46 You've hit the nail on the head. We work with a lot of high net worth families that have really been scratching their head. They love the weather in California, but where do we want to live. And we can operate our business from anywhere. Or we can move our business to the same as Tesla to Texas to other states. And that has been an issue. California, LA is really going to have to look at what's going on. I believe and get into a little bit of an issue where a lot of our clients that live in like the city, the new rule that was passed with taxes, if you own a home over $5 million and sell it. I mean, it's a very interesting aspect because LA has just been has become very expensive to live in. For myself, I moved out here from New York 20 years ago, the weather to raise a family. It's just an absolute wonderful place to live. But some people have made decisions to move out and especially a lot of companies. Frank Mottek 7:51 We're going to be the last of the Mohicans. Are you helping other people move out? What's the typical situation you see nowadays? Brian Rabinovitz 7:57 We have a lot of families that are moving to Nashville, moving to Utah, moving to Texas. And it's all caused by the tax brackets. But again, LA is a vibrant community. Silicon key is excuse me, Silicon Beach is coming back. Our VC community is doing really well. Private equity is great out here. And it is just such an affluent place to live. So LA will survive. Frank Mottek 8:24 You have to be successful to be here. Brian Rabinovitz 8:27 You do. The cost of living is extreme. We see that as a verb in the clients that we help. Frank Mottek 8:33 Right and that's another reason why we're seeing such energy in this room. People do whatever it takes to to succeed. Brian Rabinovitz 8:41 Exactly. Frank Mottek 8:42 All the more reason to celebrate to this evening, Brian, anything else you'd like to mention about what you do at Citrin Cooperman or anything else about the Echelon and how people can connect with both. Brian Rabinovitz 8:52 I'd love to mention a little about Citrin Cooperman. We are a full service national professional service firm. Just a little funny thing. We used to be called an accounting firm. But about a year and a half ago, we went through a recapitalization. And we are private equity on right owned right now. There has been a roll up in the accounting industry. So since we're not majority owned by CPAs, we're called a professional service firm. But it's an amazing place that I work. We do buy side sell side due diligence quality of earnings. We work with family offices. One of the big things that's out there right now that every business has to understand is really understand your cybersecurity. That's a big part of what we're doing for our clients. We do traditional audit tax but it's a great marketplace out there. You look at this room right now I'm looking around. It is fabulous. It's vibrant. People want to do business. And the one thing I can state to everybody is when you go to an event like this, you're not going to get a deal right away. Everybody is making an investment in time, and you have to build your relationships. And that's what's very important. Frank Mottek 10:04 I wish we had more time I see people eager to hear to speak with you. So we'll let you get back to the mixer Brian Rabinovitz, Director of Business Development, West for the Citrin Cooperman firm. Put us all together tonight. Brian, thank you very much for your great story and for being here tonight and making this possible. Brian Rabinovitz 10:22 Thank you Frank. Frank Mottek 10:24 Thank you. Announcer 10:28 Presented by Echelon Business Development. More than just networking, way more! Transcribed by https://otter.ai