2025 YEAR IN REVIEW

2025 was a defining year for Lakeside Partners.

We were honored to advise eight founder- and family-owned businesses on successful transactions across business services, industrials, food and ingredients, specialty distribution, consumer, and infrastructure services, achieving outcomes that exceeded ownership expectations in 100% of our transactions.

At our core, Lakeside is purpose-built to serve entrepreneurs and families navigating pivotal ownership decisions. Every process we design is bespoke, aligned to each client’s unique goals around value, legacy, employees, and future growth. In 2025, that philosophy was reinforced through a series of complex sell-side and recapitalization mandates, including platform-defining transactions in infrastructure services, specialty distribution, food manufacturing, youth sports media, and licensed consumer products.

Beyond transactions, we continued to invest in our platform, welcoming three new team members to further strengthen our execution capabilities and launching a new satellite office in Sioux Falls to deepen our presence in a rapidly expanding Midwestern market and better serve founders across the region.

Most importantly, we are grateful to the founders, families, management teams, buyers, and partners who trusted us with some of the most important decisions of their careers. Your confidence is what fuels our work.

As we look ahead, our focus remains unchanged, to deliver honest advice, Wall Street-level execution, and truly bespoke outcomes for lower middle-market business owners.

Here’s to continued momentum in 2026.

 *Select transactions completed by Lakeside principals while at previous firms.