- Establishing whether the company’s general strategic requirements are focused on incremental expansion or a major step change
- Establishing the more detailed specific strategic requirements for any new acquisitions, such as:
- bolt-on businesses augmenting current positions;
- new businesses or technologies;
- new markets or customers;
- new resources or inputs; and/or
- high grading human capital or gaining experienced staff
- Establishing screening processes for identification of acquisition targets
- Helping to understand the doability of any acquisitions strategy and target
- Working with a company to track targets and developing an approach strategy
- Running, leading or supporting deal activity, from initial planning, due diligence, negotiation, through to signing and completion
- Establishing a list of potential competitors in any deal and understanding competitor appetite for the asset, financial capacity and overall strategy
- Helping to understand the perspective and strategy of the seller
- Helping to specify valuation parameters and a price to win, including understanding potential synergies (both revenue and cost) and whether the company has a differential advantage over competitors
- Ensuring that the results from due diligence feed into both the calculation of asset values as well as the negotiation of transaction documents
- Developing and implementing a bidding and negotiations strategy
- Helping to avoid pitfalls in the negotiation of transaction agreements (Confidentiality, Bid Letters, SPA, TSA, Conduct of Business, Disclosure Letter, etc)
- Working with a company to analyse funding needs and helping to identify and facilitate funding options
- Establishing post-acquisition performance metrics to help gauge whether pre-acquisition synergies are delivered
- Ensuring that the integration aspects of any deal have been established (e.g., transition arrangements, retention of staff, pensions, governance, etc) so that the integration team can establish a proper integration plan and begin implementation as soon as possible