Campbell was a co-founder of Six Degrees Group in 2011 and has held numerous director-level positions spanning strategy, marketing, sales, product development, business transformation and acquisition integration roles. He has worked in tech for over 20 years for publicly listed, privately owned and PE-backed businesses with a strong track-record of shareholder value creation. During the last 10 years, Campbell has been involved in 25 acquisitions, numerous equity and debt fundraises, has led dozens of buy-and sell-side commercial due diligence projects, and was the messaging lead for Six Degrees for the successful exit of Penta Capital to Charlesbank in 2015.
During the last few years of assessing hundreds of potential acquisitions, and working with firms across the complete M&A value chain, Campbell observed that the sector wasn’t following the same trends as most industries. Namely that simple advice remained expensive, terminology was esoteric and strategic guidance was concentrated on higher-value transactions, resulting in a situation where many companies that should be using acquisitions to create wealth were not and those same companies weren’t paying enough attention to their future exit value either. He has established Sunfish Advisory to change the way the industry operates.
Commenting on this announcement, Campbell stated: “I’m delighted to launch Sunfish Advisory and I’m excited to start helping more companies on their M&A journeys. I really believe that acquisitions are the best and fastest way for businesses to create value but too many leave the opportunities on the table. This isn’t surprising; for most owner/founders, they started a telecoms or tech firm in their garage and have spent much of their working life scaling it up. If you’ve never bought or sold a business, it’s understandable if doing so seems risky or daunting. But that’s where experienced help and a long-term view is essential; I’ve seen all the positive things that M&A can bring but I’m carrying plenty of scars from mistakes that have taught me just as much.”
“Crucially, M&A should be one element of a coherent business plan and complement your go-to market approach as part of a broader growth strategy. I’ve looked at 100+ companies in my time so I know what buyers are looking for. But for Sunfish Advisory, it’s more than that; we want to help companies grow organically and inorganically, build scale and market differentiation, and then realise a successful exit. We want to engage with growing and ambitious SMEs who are looking to take big strides as a business over the next two or three years whilst laying the groundwork for an equity event, whether that’s a secondary buy-out or a full exit.”
“We’ll be offering free help and advice, including videos, on our website. But more importantly, we want to build a real M&A community where we can bring people looking to buy, companies looking to sell, and advisors looking to help, together in a social environment. Therefore, Thursday 23rd November will see our inaugural ‘M&A for Telecoms and Tech’ event take place in the City with an afternoon of expert speakers and practitioner panellists all giving advice and insight, ahead of an evening of business and social networking. We think this approach is unique and we really hope it will encourage many more CEOs and MDs to get involved in M&A to build better businesses.”