Investor and Former Investment Banker (Matt Parsons)

The Dream Vocation Podcast with Tony Bellagamba

In this episode we speak with Matt Parsons, founder and Managing Partner of an investment firm named Camp Lake Capital, which invests in businesses that have between $2 and $5 million of EBITDA, which is a fancy word for cashflow.

I’ve known Matt for almost 20 years, as he and I started out as young Investment Bankers together in the early 2000’s, sitting next to each other for 90 hours a week in cubicles while we hammered away at spreadsheets. While I bailed out of the finance game after just a few years, Matt stayed the course due to the intellectual stimulation and challenge that finance presented.

Matt spent the first 5 years of his career working both sides of mergers and acquisitions, first working as an Analyst in Investment Banking helping to sell companies for 9 figure deals, and then pivoting to Private Equity, where he was part of a team that acquired companies.

During the financial crisis of 2008, Matt was accepted into business school at the University of Chicago. At the same time, he received a phone call from an old Investment Banking colleague asking him to return to the world of sell-side mergers and acquisitions. Matt accepted and for the next 11 years moved up the ranks of Investment Banking, working on mergers and acquisitions across the globe within the Industrials industry.

Throughout that time, Matt invested his money wisely and was successful enough to break off on his own in 2021 to form Camp Lake Capital. Matt now oversees a small but growing portfolio of investments, including a supplier of personalized souvenirs and a distributor of specialty wire and cable.

Listen in as Matt tells us about his life in high finance, and how he climbed up the ladder to run his own investment firm and live out his dreams.