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Michael Gethen is Managing Partner in Asia at Modus Partners, a Singapore-based boutique advisory firm specialising in cross-border M&A and trade sale mandates across Southeast Asia. With a career spanning Australia and Asia since the 1990s, he combines deep transactional experience across more than 100 corporate deals with direct operating credentials as a former CEO and technology entrepreneur. As a founding member of Advisiom, he came to Gibraltar to build relationships with dealmaking peers who share his values and approach. We sat down with him to discuss the exit pressures building across Southeast Asia’s VC-backed tech sector, the strategic value of country exclusivity, and what genuine seniority of experience means in the boutique advisory market.
Tell us who you are, your firm, and where you’re joining us from. I’m Michael Gethen. I’m the Managing Partner in Asia for Modus Partners, which is based in Singapore.
In one sentence, what does your firm do best? What our firm does best is M&A and trade sale engagements for clients in Southeast Asia – Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and so on – where the likely buyer is not in the region. They’re going to be a buyer from somewhere else in Asia, the US, Europe, or maybe even Australia. Reaching those buyers is what we do best.
What made you say yes to Advisiom? We said yes to Advisiom based on a combination of the firms that we could already see had joined, that we believed were really going to be peers we could work with, and who had similar values and styles of operating. And we said yes because Amanda is just great at what she does.
What does country exclusivity mean for a boutique like yours? Country exclusivity for a boutique like us provides the benefit of making us comfortable to invest in promoting not only our own brand, but also the Advisiom brand, and to build a presence for the firm and the group in a manner that we will be the major beneficiary of.
Who have you met here that you wouldn’t have met anywhere else? Here at the Deal Summit, I have met a whole bunch of senior dealmaking, firm-owning operators that I just would not have met unless I happened to randomly bump into them at an M&A or private equity conference. So I’ve met a bunch of really good people here that I just would not have otherwise met, full stop.
What’s the most interesting deal trend in your market right now? The most interesting deal trend I see in Singapore and across Southeast Asia is the legacy of the very significant amount of venture capital investment that came into the region to grow the tech sector across the period leading up to COVID, and which has subsequently tailed off. The trend we see is that there are now many VCs in the region with end-of-fund life pressures starting to mount and a need to exit their portfolios. So we are seeing a very interesting trend where we are being invited in by investment funds to assist them with portfolio reviews, to identify which companies are going to be able to exit.
"The seniority of experience you get with a boutique is only comparable to the highest levels of the large investment banks"
Complete this sentence: The boutique advantage is? The boutique advantage, and I say this with suitable immodesty, is that if a client wanted to work with me to sell their company or raise a large amount of capital and I was at partner level at one of the large banks, they would meet me once and then get handed off to a lower-level managing director, heaven forbid even lower than that. With a boutique firm, you are getting all of my experience, all of the scars on my back, because I already know pretty much everything that doesn’t work to get a deal done. I certainly don’t know everything that does work, but the seniority of experience that you will get with a boutique is only comparable to the highest levels of the large investment banks.
Michael has worked in the media and technology sectors in senior strategic, M&A and general management roles in Australia and Asia since the 1990s and has been based in Singapore since 2011.
His sector experience as a corporate advisor and non-executive Board director is complemented by direct experience as a CEO, and as a successful entrepreneur who has founded, built and sold technology companies. He has led or participated in more than 100 corporate transactions in mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, Initial Public Offerings, investment and strategic partnerships.
Michael has worked for media & technology companies, mid-market investment banks and major listed companies, including Fairfax Media and Honeywell Corporation. He holds an MBA and an MMgt from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management.
To learn more about the network and membership opportunities, reach out at office@advisiom.com.
