Criteria for Membership

Membership is tightly controlled with membership priority given to private equity firms, corporate acquirers, and investment bankers. You join as an individual not a firm.

All other prospective members (including lenders, wealth managers, accountants, attorneys, consultants, those not currently with a firm, etc) should be experienced M&A professionals and, to join, will need to identify and apply with a new corporate acquirer, private equity buyer or investment banker so that our chapter can remain in a healthy balance.

Why do we have this rule?

Our goal is to keep the chapter in a healthy balance and ensure that advisors are in fact genuine members of the M&A deal community rather than someone who is simply looking to sell services to our members and thereby decrease the value of membership and networking through ACG.

How to join

Service professionals include any individual who is not a PE investor, corporate acquirer/c-level executive, or investment banker. If you are a service provider you need to:

Identify a new private equity, investment banker or corporate buyer that you are joining (this excludes someone joining during enrollment to ACGU) with,
Have both parties complete an online application
Email both names to Alison Garber at agarber@acg.org.

If requirements are met, ACG will approve both membership applications and each new member will receive log in and password information.

Annual membership dues for ACG Philadelphia are $525 per person and all memberships are offered on an individual basis.

If you are unclear what we mean by corporate or private equity members, please view the descriptions below for further clarification.

Corporate

A member who works for a company (public or private) and whose job description includes growing the company organically, through acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, alliances, strategic planning, product development, licensing, franchising, etc. The member may be a staff corporate development officer, a CFO, a CEO, or president depending on the size and resources of the company.

CD Corporate Development
Member is VP corporate development, VP strategic
CF Corporate Finance
Member is chief financial officer, treasurer, controller, etc.
CM Corporate Management
Member is chairman, chief executive officer, chief operating officer, etc.

Equity Group

A member who works for an equity group and whose job description includes purchasing ownership interests in companies (public or private) for the purpose of growing the companies through internal growth, add-on acquisitions, consolidations, joint ventures, alliances, licensing, franchising, etc. with the ultimate goal to exit from the investment through a partial or complete sale of the company to a third party, a recapitalization, or an IPO. The member is usually a partner, principal officer, associate, or analyst with the equity group and has an opportunity to participate in the equity ownership of the acquired companies. The equity group may be managing an equity fund, investing their own funds, or investing on behalf of individuals and/or institutions on a case by case basis.

EGF - Equity Group Managing Fund
Member is employed by an equity group which is managing a committed equity fund.
EGU - Equity Group Not Managing Fund
Member is employed by an equity group which is not managing a committed equity fund