Most investment bankers are trained to find buyers.

Strategic.
Sponsors.
Family offices.
Infrastructure funds.
Public companies.
Portfolio companies.

The usual universe.

But what happens when the obvious buyers are not there?

That was the problem Gabor Szendroi and his team at Concorde MB Partners faced in the Hungarian mid-market after the financial crisis. They had strong founder-led businesses. They had owners who wanted liquidity. They had real companies with real value.

But the international buyers who had previously been active in Central and Eastern Europe were less interested. The old buyer universe no longer worked in the same way.

So, Gabor and his team did something that should interest every aspiring investment banking leader.

They did not just search harder. They built a new buyer universe. That model is called Management Buy-In, or MBI.

This model now accounts for 25% of Concorde MB Partners transactions. And for VPs, Directors, and future MDs, it offers a powerful lesson in how origination really works.

A Management Buy-In is a transaction where an external manager or operator acquires a business, usually alongside a group of investors, and then steps into the company to run it.

It is different from a Management Buy-Out, where the existing management team buys the company from the owner.

In an MBI, the buyer is not already inside the business. The buyer is brought in. That is what makes it interesting.

The MBI investor is not simply a financial buyer. They are usually an experienced operator with the credibility to lead the business after completion. In Gabor’s model, this is often someone in their 40s or early 50s with 20 years of operating experience, ideally someone who has managed across functions such as production, sales, finance, and general management.

The financing is typically a combination of personal capital, money from trusted investors, bank financing, and vendor financing or delayed payment from the seller.

In simple terms, the MBI solves two problems at once. It creates a buyer. And it creates a new CEO.

The MBI model is particularly powerful in founder-led and family-owned businesses.

Many of these companies have been built by exceptional entrepreneurs, but they are still highly dependent on the founder. The owner is often the CEO, chief salesperson, strategic decision-maker, relationship holder, and cultural anchor.

That creates a succession problem.

The business may be valuable, profitable, and strategically interesting. But if there is no next-generation family member, no internal management team ready to step up, and no obvious strategic buyer, the transaction becomes difficult.

This is not just a Hungarian issue. It is a global issue.

Across many markets, a generational shift in business ownership is underway. A huge number of small and medium-sized business owners are approaching retirement without clear succession plans. As McKinsey put it:

That line matters for bankers. Because succession is not just a family issue.

It is a transaction issue. It is a financing issue. It is a leadership issue.

And for the right banker, it is an origination opportunity.

Most bankers think about origination as identifying a company that might sell, then matching it with a list of obvious buyers.

That is useful. But it is also limited.

The more valuable question is: what market problem is stopping transactions from happening, and can I build a model that solves it?

That is what Gabor did.

He saw strong companies with succession needs. He saw fewer international buyers. He saw local operators with ambition. He saw investors with capital but a limited appetite to run businesses day to day. Then he connected those pieces into a repeatable model.

That is the real origination lesson. Great bankers do not only react to buyer appetite. They shape the market around an unmet need.

They ask better questions.

·       Who could own this business if the obvious buyer does not exist?

·       Who has the operating credibility to run it?

·       Who has the trust network to raise capital?

·       What financing structure would make it possible?

·       What would give the seller confidence that the company will be in good hands?

Those questions turn a stuck situation into a bankable opportunity.

For aspiring investment banking leaders, the MBI concept is valuable because it forces you to develop the skills that matter at the MD level.

First, it builds market mapping discipline. You are not just tracking companies. You are tracking owners, succession needs, operators, investors, lenders, and advisers.

Second, it builds relationship depth. An MBI requires trust from multiple sides: the seller, the incoming manager, the investor group, the lender, and often the existing management team. That makes it a relationship-led transaction, not just a process-led transaction.

Third, it builds commercial creativity. These deals often require vendor financing, leverage, staged payments, and a thoughtful transition plan. The banker has to solve for risk, trust, control, and continuity.

Fourth, it builds a proprietary buyer universe. If you know credible operators before others do, you have access to buyers your competitors may not even be considering.

That is why this model is so interesting. It does not just help one deal close. It creates a repeatable origination advantage.

In Gabor’s case, the MBI model became much more than a transaction tool.

It became a network.

The firm built relationships with experienced managers, CEOs, C-level executives, business-minded professionals, lenders, investors, and owner-managed companies. Over time, that network became part of the firm’s competitive edge.

This is important for VPs and Directors.

Your future franchise will rarely be built from one relationship. It is built from an ecosystem.

The MBI model shows how powerful that can be.

If you know the right operators, you can bring a new answer to a seller who thought their options were limited.

If you know the right sellers, you can bring opportunities to operators who want to become owners.

If you know the right capital providers, you can help turn ambition into a transaction.

That is investment banking at its best. Not just intermediation but market creation.

Not every operator can become an MBI investor. The best candidates need more than ambition. They need credibility.

They need operating experience. They need the ability to take responsibility. They need a strong enough track record for investors and lenders to believe they can run the company. They also need the emotional resilience to move from employee to owner.

That is a major psychological shift.

A corporate executive may have managed a division, but buying and running a founder-led company is different. There is no large platform behind them. No corporate infrastructure. No headquarters to escalate to. No brand to hide behind.

They become the person.

That is why the banker’s judgment matters. The question is not simply: does this person want to buy a business?

The better question is: would a seller, lender, and investor group trust this person to protect and grow the company?

That is where the banker creates value.

Even if you never work on a formal MBI, the thinking behind the model is useful.

If you cover founder-led businesses, start listening for succession issues earlier. Many owners do not wake up one day and decide to sell. The thought builds over years. Health, family, management gaps, fatigue, capital needs, and next-generation uncertainty all play a role.

If you cover sponsors or family offices, start asking which operators they trust. Which CEOs would they back? Which executives have the ambition to own? Which sectors do they understand well enough to support an MBI-style transaction?

If you cover corporates, pay attention to executives leaving large organisations. Some may not want another corporate role. They may want ownership, autonomy, and a platform to build.

If you are a VP or Director, build a simple operator map in your sector. Track credible CEOs, divisional heads, former founders, CFOs, commercial leaders, and operating partners. Understand who has capital, who has investor relationships, who has appetite, and who has the credibility to lead.

That map may become more valuable than another generic buyer list.

The MBI model is not only about succession. It is about how ambitious bankers think.

Gabor’s team faced a market problem. The normal buyer universe was not enough. Instead of accepting that constraint, they built a new model around local operators, investor groups, leverage, vendor financing, and founder succession.

That is the mindset future MDs need.

Do not just ask: who is already buying?

Ask: Who could buy if the right structure existed?

Do not just ask: who is in the market?

Ask: Who should be in the market?

Do not just ask: where is the mandate?

Ask: What unsolved problem could become a mandate if I understood it earlier than others?

That is how origination develops. Not from random networking. Not from waiting for clients to call.

But from seeing patterns, building relationships, and creating solutions before the market has fully named the opportunity.

The MBI model is powerful because it reframes what a buyer can be.

A buyer does not always have to be a corporate with a strategy team or a sponsor with committed capital.

Sometimes the buyer is an experienced operator with ambition, credibility, a trusted investor group, bank financing, and a seller willing to support the transition.

For investment bankers, that opens up an important lesson. Your buyer universe is not fixed. It can be built.

And in a market where succession challenges are growing, founder-led companies need solutions, and origination is becoming harder, the bankers who can create new buyer universes will stand out.

That is the shift from execution to origination. Not just running the process. Building the market around it.