Virginia Financial Analysts, founded in 2026, is a student-run club operated on the model of a lower middle market private equity firm. We source, underwrite, and vote on founder-led businesses the way an actual deal team would — because that's the only way to actually learn how one works.
Every semester, VFA runs two parallel coverage strategies, each scoped to teach a different part of a real deal.
VFA's platform strategy involves full-cycle diligence on companies that generally have annual revenues between $10 million and $150 million — founder-led or family-owned businesses large enough to have a real capital structure, small enough for a student team to actually understand it end to end. Deal teams build the model, underwrite the thesis, and present to committee over a full semester.
VFA's add-on strategy involves shorter, targeted studies on smaller businesses — no revenue minimum — used to practice roll-up and bolt-on logic underneath an existing platform thesis. These run in three to five weeks and are typically a new analyst's first case.
The screening criteria, capital structures, and transaction types our deal teams are trained to model — run as a single traditional private equity shop, with no separate credit team.
VFA runs one integrated deal team — no separate credit or capital markets group. Every case is modeled the way a traditional private equity firm would run it, start to finish.
Teams underwrite majority-equity buyouts with board control — the standard structure at a traditional PE firm — not passive minority positions.
Every thesis needs a real operating improvement plan behind it — pricing, cost, or growth initiatives — not just multiple expansion.
Teams size the debt in an LBO the way a real deal team would, stress-testing coverage ratios and downside cases before signing off on a structure.
One team follows a case from first screen through committee, financing structure, and a modeled exit — sourcing to exit, with no handoffs.
Run by students, held to the same bar as a real deal team.
