Tell us about your career and how you became interested in dentistry

After graduating from Boston University, I spent several years working at UBS in New York. Working at UBS really focused my career on helping business owners assess and execute on a wide variety of corporate finance needs. As the largest wealth manager in the world, UBS’ clients are people who founded, grew, and operated businesses of all shapes and sizes.

While there, I worked on a team that focused on helping clients of the firm assess and pursue their strategic options. Whether they wanted to sell, were trying to go public, or further grow their business through an infusion of capital, we had solutions to meet their needs. Working with clients to navigate these life-defining moments across a number of industries was incredibly fulfilling. During my time at UBS, I had the opportunity to work with several healthcare companies, some in the dental space. In my next chapter, I knew I wanted to focus on healthcare. 

In 2020, I was approached with an opportunity to join Dental Care Alliance (DCA) to run M&A for them. I spent the last four years there helping them close over 50 deals while adding over 100 locations. Taking the deep dive into the dental industry and really getting to know the players, specialties, vendors, and lives behind each practice has been incredibly rewarding. I often say that the dental industry is like the wild west, there’s so much innovation and unique opportunities that no day is the same. 

DSOPro: What made you decide to start your own business?

Throughout my career, it’s always been a goal of mine to start my own business. After spending the last four years on the buy side executing deals, it became clear there was a significant opportunity to provide better outcomes for dental practice owners looking to sell. Ascend Strategic Partners was born from the idea that there was a better way to achieve ideal outcomes for dental practice owners while not charging a high fee. I saw many times where “fit” was not emphasized, and deals were evaluated strictly on purchase price. As every business owner can appreciate, a successful and long-term partnership is built on much more than just purchase price.

I started Ascend Strategic Partners to focus on fit and finding the right partner for the next stage in your career. That is just as big a piece of the equation as the purchase price. I knew there was an opportunity to start something new and to set a new bar for the positive outcomes that dental practice owners should expect. 

DSOPro: Can you tell us about the services Ascend offers?

We offer three main services: pre-sale consulting, dental brokerage, and diligence support. The first two services, pre-sale consulting and brokerage, are focused on dental practice owners who are considering selling their dental practice either now or in the future. While the last service, diligence support, is focused on assisting DSOs execute their growth plans. 

The first service that we offer is pre-sale consulting. We know that education is a huge piece of the equation that needs to happen before you explore selling your dental practice. Our goal is to help educate you on what the process looks like, who the buyers are, and what deal structures you can expect. If you’re unsure that you’re ready to sell your practice or believe that you are months to years out, you can engage our pre-sale consulting services to help prepare your business and provide a strategic playbook to maximize your ideal outcome at a sale. We start off by identifying your goals and what a successful transition would look like. We then gather your latest financials to create a model and snapshot of where your practice would be valued today. By combining these first two steps, we then create a strategic playbook for you to execute on to get your business ready for a sale and achieve your ideal transition. 

Our next service is dental brokerage, where we help dental practice owners sell their practice to a private practice, DSO, or private equity group. Given my time on the buy-side, I have a lot of inside knowledge on what DSOs are looking for, what pricing you should expect, and who the players are for all sizes, specialties, and desired outcomes.
 

The final service that we offer, which I feel is quite unique, is diligence support. As I was working to start Ascend, it became obvious that there was a need for contract M&A work for DSOs. We can seamlessly plug in with your company to run all of your modeling for new opportunities and execute your diligence process once an opportunity is under letter of intent. We know that there are a lot of emerging DSOs that don’t have an M&A team in place but want to execute a couple deals a year, and we are the perfect fit for that. 

DSOPro: Tell us about your process for brokering a dental practice.

The second of our three services, dental brokerage, is where we bring your practice to market to sell. We help you identify your ideal outcome, which may be anything from selling to another private practice, to a DSO, or to a private equity group. We prepare your financials, your story, and summary presentation to put your strongest foot forward. We walk you through the process, evaluate bids against your criteria, negotiate with a potential partner, and help you through signing on the dotted line. Once you’ve signed with a buyer, our help doesn’t stop there. We make sure that you’re properly represented through the diligence process by bringing in the best third-party partners to help you get to closing fast and efficiently. 

DSOPro: Can you talk about the benefits of selling your practice?

This ties back into education being a huge part of the process. We wrote an article on the main considerations for selling your dental practice. Practice owners have spent decades building their practices and it’s been their lifeblood. They’ve put in countless time, hard work, and effort into creating the practices we’re speaking of today. At some point, it’s worth considering if it is time to de-risk or, more specifically, realize the value of their hard work.

One of the key areas to consider is reducing risk by “taking chips off the table.” All your equity has been locked within your practice, and 10-15 years ago, there wasn’t really the ability to unlock the equity like there is today. Having that ability now, it’s worth considering if you’re thinking about retiring in 5, 10, even 15 years. It may align with your goals to partner with a DSO earlier so you can unlock a piece of that equity today while continuing to grow your practice. For others, having a clear roadmap to realize this value over the long term may align most closely with their goals. 

Another benefit to bringing in a new partner is to fuel growth. Often, a practice owner wants to buy a practice down the road from them so they can expand. And often, especially now, it’s expensive. Rates are high and money is expensive. When you partner with a DSO, they have the experience, capital, and flexibility to help you grow and expand into those locations. They want to partner with you to help you expand.

Finally, favorable pricing on supplies and better reimbursement rates are obviously a benefit when you partner with a DSO. While you might not see the direct results daily, these are things that we identified in the background that will help your practice’s profitability post a partnership, which in the long run will also help you.

DSOPro: Can you tell us a little more about the diligence support you’re offering?

As I was starting Ascend Strategic Partners, it became clear that there was an opportunity to provide diligence support to emerging DSOs or even DSOs that don’t currently have an M&A team in place. The goal is to act like your in-house M&A team. While a lot of these groups might be completing only a handful of deals a year, we have the ability to plug and play whenever they need us, and to identify common areas that might be overlooked if they don’t have experience executing deals. This also frees up the rest of the executive team and even the sponsors to continue executing on their daily jobs. And it allows us to be the industry experts who will help execute their growth needs.

DSOPro: What kinds of elements fall under diligence? 

As a part of our offering, we can review, model and value each new opportunity that a DSO is looking at. Additionally, if the DSO already has an opportunity under letter of intent, we can create and run their diligence process. Now this might come in different shapes and sizes, but it generally contains the following items: creating a quality of earnings, a chart audit, legal documentation, and any in-house operational diligence. This might include an employee census, tax returns, licenses, and many other items that are needed to successfully integrate a practice into a DSO. 

DSOPro: Explain what quality of earnings means.

A quality of earnings is a type of financial diligence that’s typically run by a third-party accounting firm. It’s a deep dive into the financials of the practice. Making sure that personal expenses the practice owner might be running through get stripped out, that we’re recognizing revenue in the correct periods, and that staff is being paid appropriately. The goal is to ensure that the practice's financials are where they’re stated to be. Since everything’s based off EBITDA, the goal is to ensure that the practice’s EBITDA is true and accurate.

DSOPro: Where do you see the DSO space heading?

Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen a surge in new players and emerging DSOs making their mark in the space. I think it’s extremely healthy to have increased competition, and we’re starting to see a lot of the newer players create a unique approach to partnerships. I think it’s something that the space has definitely needed. So, as many of the bigger players were put on the sidelines due to higher interest rates and more expensive capital, we’ve started to see some players come in and offer a truly differentiated approach for dental practice owners looking to sell.

Over the next six months, I think we’ll start to see some of the larger players making a comeback. We’re already seeing groups obtain additional capital to fund their M&A needs. People were focused inwards while rates were high and now that we’ve stabilized, I definitely think we’ll see an uptick in activity between now and the end of the year.

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About Austin Hunter

Austin Hunter brings nearly a decade of experience in unlocking value for business owners through strategic partnerships. He began his career at UBS assisting business owners with a wide range of corporate finance needs. Most recently, Austin spent four years at one of the largest DSOs in the country building an industry-leading acquisition team covering services including modeling, diligence, and integration. During this tenure, he successfully executed over 50 transactions with a cumulative value of over $500m. Austin holds a B.S. in Accounting and Finance from Boston University. In his free time, he enjoys Tampa sports, golfing, and spending time on the water.

Ascend Strategic Partners

Ascend Strategic Partners specializes in providing expert M&A advisory services to dental practices and DSOs. Our services include pre-sale consulting, brokerage, and diligence support, designed to help dental professionals achieve optimal outcomes when selling or buying dental practices. With extensive industry experience and a client-focused approach, we guide our clients through every step of the M&A process, ensuring seamless transitions and maximizing the value of their practice.