Acquisition Advisory Services

Structured around individual client needs, we provide acquisition advisory services to cost-effectively support our clients in all phases of their acquisition-oriented growth initiatives.

Through our collaboration with strategic intelligence specialists and industry consultants, we are able to do what most other investment banks or financial advisors cannot do--assist clients in assessing the technical as well as the strategic and financial merits of individual transactions or alternative corporate development initiatives.

Depending on each client’s needs, we can provide an analysis of strategic growth alternatives, do an acquisition search to identify and evaluate targets, structure and negotiate a specific transaction, or any combination of these.

Assess and Focus Strategy

As a first step in a comprehensive acquisition advisory assignment, or if our engagement is limited to a corporate strategy assessment, we structure a process with a client that allows us to fully understand its objectives, capabilities and resources. Some of the more important issues addressed during this strategic review include:

  • Shareholder/corporate objectives
  • Strategic competencies, capabilities and resources
  • Competitive position in existing and targeted market(s)
  • Industry trends and prospects for market growth
  • Ongoing and past corporate development efforts in targeted market(s)
  • Financial performance and position.

Although it varies, often a one- to two-day workshop format is used to gather the above outlined information. During these sessions we typically seek input from a number of constituencies within a client’s organization. We may augment the client-provided information with information sourced from third parties, using our industry contacts and the resources of our strategic intelligence consultants, all while maintaining client confidentiality.

Following completion of these sessions, we produce a report that provides our preliminary thoughts on strategic alternatives available to the client. These alternatives are developed in consideration of a client’s own resources and capabilities as well as general market conditions (e.g. overall market trends, mergers and acquisitions activity, existing strategic alliances in targeted market(s), availability of capital, growth prospects, etc.).

Build and Pursue Proprietary Deal Flow

If our engagement is an acquisition search, or, in the case of a comprehensive advisory engagement, if a decision is made to move forward with an active acquisition effort, we tailor a program to meet an individual client's needs (considering internal resources, capabilities, and preferences) that includes the following activities:

  • Additional research and analysis to identify acquisition candidates best meeting strategic objectives
  • Development and execution of customized tactical plans for pursuing specific acquisition targets
  • Continued application of enhanced industry/candidate knowledge to assist a client in cultivating relationships with acquisition candidates.

In this phase of identifying, qualifying and pursuing potential acquisition targets, our industry specialization, along with the confidential primary-source research methods used by our strategic intelligence specialists, is highly effective in uncovering truly proprietary, “not on the market” transaction opportunities, and evaluating their relative attractiveness. Clients also benefit from our helping them focus their time on cultivating relationships with those acquisition candidates that offer the greatest potential for value creation.

Superior Transaction Execution

We possess significant middle market mergers and acquisitions and financing transaction experience and can assist a client throughout the execution phase of an acquisition, including:

  • Assistance to a client in structuring and negotiating the terms of a transaction. Our deal experience allows us to help our clients prioritize objectives, properly value the acquisition candidate using the superior information we’ve gained, offer creative structures to achieve win-win outcomes, identify and resolve potential issues early in the negotiation process, and complete an efficient process that allows management to continue running its business.
  • If needed, assistance in approaching and presenting information to possible capital providers, advising on optimal capital structure, and evaluating financing alternatives and proposals.
  • Assistance in the systematic and rigorous due diligence of the target to identify and evaluate the challenges and opportunities inherent in a transaction. Again, in this critical transaction step, the primary source research methods used by our strategic intelligence specialists can be crucial to maximizing value creation and mitigating transaction risk.