Brad Chandler is an investment banking and corporate finance expert who focuses on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), private equity (PE), and business valuation. Mr. Chandler has experience with public and private M&A transactions; underwriting and financing, including committed financing for large M&A deals; initial public offerings (IPOs); secondary offerings; block trades; and a range of PE transactions, such as take-privates, dividend recapitalizations, and exits. His work has encompassed fairness opinions, debt and equity capital committee analysis, investment bank margin loans to PE funds, and business viability assessments in equity or debt IPOs.
Mr. Chandler’s valuation and financial modeling expertise includes discounted cash flow (DCF), comparable companies, precedent transactions, leveraged buyout, accretion/dilution, and sum-of-the-parts analyses.
Mr. Chandler has been retained as an expert witness and has testified in deposition.
Over a decade of M&A and deal experience
Before joining the Wisconsin School of Business in 2017, Mr. Chandler was a managing director in the Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley in New York City. In that role, he advised corporate and PE clients on M&A, shareholder activism, leveraged buyouts, debt and equity financings, restructurings, and fund-level financings. He successfully executed over fifty-five M&A and capital-raising transactions, representing over $225 billion in transaction value.
Academic leadership in investment banking
At the Wisconsin School of Business, Mr. Chandler is a member of the teaching faculty, where he oversees the school’s Investment Banking Pathway for students pursuing investment banking careers. He previously directed the school’s Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking for five years, administering specialized programming for M.B.A. and undergraduate students and teaching the Nicholas Center’s core curriculum.
Mr. Chandler has taught courses in investment banking and capital markets, M&A, and financial modeling and valuation. He also developed and teaches a course focused on cryptocurrencies, blockchain, digital assets, and decentralized finance (DeFi) products.
Mr. Chandler has served as chief financial officer (CFO) and board member of an early-stage biotechnology company. He also advised a venture capital-backed FinTech platform, providing proprietary quantitative data to retail investors.