LEA Buys PDB

GRAND RAPIDS — Lambert, Edwards & Associates has acquired PDB Connect, a local investor relations technology provider that was the first in the region to offer video-based virtual management presentations that give public companies more exposure among existing and potential investors. 

Lambert Edwards, Michigan’s largest investor relations firm, re-branded and trademarked PDB Connect’s virtual management presentation technology and named it Roadcast. A Roadcast is typically a 30-minute video presentation that covers all the content of a company’s standard analyst presentation. It gives corporations the ability to communicate their stories to investors and other key stakeholders anytime and anywhere.

In the presentation, officers of the company talk directly to existing and potential investors about the company’s business model, its background, products, markets and financial results. The Roadcast is posted on the company’s Web site, and the virtual format allows viewers to click around as they please through different sections of the presentation. A Roadcast can be viewed around the clock on a worldwide basis.

Bob Dentzman and Flip Mulliner started PDB Connect in 2004. Both are partners with Lambert in Roadcast, with Dentzman serving as general manager and Mulliner as executive director. Dentzman maintains his consulting contract business on the side, while Mulliner continues to run his visual communications company, known as PostWorks. 

“We’ve shared clients with PDB for some time and have worked with Flip over the years, and that’s kind of what led us to come together,” said Jeff Lambert, LE&A’s president and managing partner. His firm had used PDB’s virtual management presentation product for a couple of its clients and had great success with it. “For us, Roadcast was an opportunity to bring another complementary service to existing clients and also a chance to bring a technology platform for investor relations. We’ve always been a consulting firm and this is really our first foray into an actual product.”

Dentzman said he and Mulliner knew they had come up with a great product but needed some additional bench strength to help in the distribution area. Lambert Edwards was well respected and growing rapidly, with clients and potential clients that could benefit from the virtual management presentation product, Dentzman said.

“Jeff had marketing savvy. His company had the distribution capabilities that were missing from our business model,” Dentzman explained. “We thought we would get there faster with Jeff, particularly because we would have some of the infrastructure of Lambert Edwards that we could leverage. Jeff saw it as an opportunity to provide incremental services to his clients and get deeper penetration with his client base.”

Dentzman will manage relationships with the Wall Street analysts that the company works with, he’ll be involved in strategic planning and will co-sell the Roadcast product along with Jeff Lambert. Mulliner will oversee the visual communications end of the Roadcast business.

Roadcast “definitely” has a lot of potential, Lambert said, and his company wants to take it national. His firm has clients in 19 states, but PDB Connect was very regional. The initial roll out of the Roadcast product will be at the National Investor Relations Institute’s annual conference and investor relations services trade show in Orlando, Fla. The conference runs June 3 through June 6, and about 1,200 attendees representing both small-cap and large-cap companies are expected. 

“We want Roadcast to be synonymous with a video-based industrial relations solutions,” Lambert added.

BetterInvesting.org. is a Roadcast distribution partner. Roadcast’s current clients include Mercantile Bank of Michigan and Spartan Motors.