Our History

In 1998, MCC Partners opened its first small office with a staff of three, with a balance sheet of $100,000. From those small beginnings, besides big dreams, the founders held certain core beliefs.

• In a world of giant organizations with a broad array of services there was room for a small firm with the highest levels of professionalism and integrity, and senior-level attention to clients and relationships

• Avoiding the 1990s world of "high-tech mania" and more or less bubble investment environment, the firm would only invest capital in strictly conservative situations, supporting strong management teams

• In a world of ever larger firms, there were gifted, entrepreneurial professionals who, in a more personal setting, with institutional credibility and congruent goals, would join MCC in creating affiliated businesses in their areas of expertise

• In a world of "other people's money", the firm would always put significant amounts of its own money in investments in made

• In a world rife with conflicts of interest, there was a need for a firm that was able to provide entirely objective advice and counsel without any pressure from alternative agendas.

The MCC team's success in pursuing those goals and beliefs is reflected today in the firm's outstanding reputation and its acknowledged role as a major educational advisory firm.

Thank you for taking the time to visit our web site. The material contained here is best read as an invitation to explore what MCC can do for you and what we can do together. We hope you will review it in that spirit.

MCC Managing Partners

Mark Slipp, Managing Partner

Mr. Slipp has been in the investment, venture and commercial finance industries for over twenty years providing superior returns to individual, corporate and pension clients. As an entrepreneur, he has successfully established a number of companies and developed a portfolio of technology patents pending, now held and managed through the MCC Fund. In his capacity as Managing Partner of MCC Partners, he brings this background to business owners, and an approach of "entrepreneurs talking to entrepreneurs".

In the early eighties, Mr. Slipp began his career on the floor of the TSE and on the trading desk of Richardson Greenshields where he developed an aptitude for developing prolific options strategies. By the early nineties Mr. Slipp worked at Burns Fry where his conservative investment philosophy earned both he and his clients significant rewards in a difficult market environment. It was then that Mr. Slipp became a leader in pension plan design and administration. In the mid-1990s, he founded Marshall Capital Corporation, a provider of wealth management services, and subsequently co-founded MCC Partners in response to demand by business owner clients with a need for credible advisory services from a source which truly understands the business owner's entire sphere of objectives.

Mr. Slipp has served on many charitable boards both national and local. He has led the successful creation of international scholarships and other academic awards.

John Szymczak, Managing Partner

Mr. Szymczak is a senior investment banker with almost 20 years of hands-on corporate finance experience in successfully developing client relationships, identifying and presenting value-added financing and M&A ideas, and advising on and managing transactions. Mr. Szymczak has worked closely with large, medium and small cap public and private companies operating in a wide range of sectors. Mr. Szymczak has a thorough understanding of equity, debt and quasi-equity financing alternatives, M&A, the financial analysis of corporate performance, cash flows, capital structure, and assessment of value, financial reporting, due diligence, investor relations, and securities regulations.

Prior to joining MCC Partners, Mr. Syzmczak’s investment banking career included working at Merrill Lynch Canada covering large cap companies looking to access the U.S. capital markets, at BZW Canada (the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank) providing M&A advisory services primarily to Canadian companies looking to buy or sell internationally, and at two Canadian investment banking boutiques focusing on equity financing small and mid cap companies. Mr. Szymczak also worked as a corporate finance advisor and interim CFO for a start up Canadian telecom company (CLEC) initially funded by Tricaster Capital. Prior to beginning his career as an investment banker, Mr. Szymczak obtained his Chartered Accountant designation while working at Ernst and Young.

Mr. Szymczak holds a MBA from the University of British Columbia and a BASc. (Civil Engineering) from the University of Toronto.

Bill Shum, Vice President, Asia

Mr. Shum brings to MCC Partners over twenty years experience with multinational corporations as well as in entrepreneurship in a variety of industries. Based in Hong Kong, he heads up the MCC Asian practice. He began his career at IBM where he brought his talents to virtually every facet of the business from finance, accounting and tax through to financial support to sales, marketing, hardware and software development, manufacturing and administration. He then joined Celestica Inc. as financial lead working with the team that took the company public in an offering worth several hundred million dollars. Mr. Shum subsequently held senior management roles in production control and supply chain management, IT and corporate development. Mr. Shum has concluded innovative and complex transactions throughout the world ranging from small through to those in the $100 millions.

In addition to his Corporate Development experience, the deep operational skills that Mr. Shum brings to MCC clients is invaluable, as is his on the ground experience around the world, most recently in Asia.

Mr. Shum holds an MBA from the University of Toronto and a B Sc. in Physics from the University of British Columbia.

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