Analyzing and presenting the company subject to the transaction with perspicacity
Analyzing and Presenting
With
perspicacity
Throughout M&A transactions and their financing, the seller then the buyer, investors and banks successively analyze and produce information, with know-hows, perspectives and interests of their own.
Different documents are used to present the target and/or the buyer:
– The information memorandum and the target’s business plan, usually drafted and modeled by the seller’s advisor.
– The documents prepared by the buyers for their executive committees and/or investors, banks, …
These documents and the information to which they refer are investigated, from the start of the negotiation until the due diligences (investigative audits) phase.
Which questions to ask first?
- What is your anticipation of the upcoming negotiation’s main issues?
- Does the documentation reflect your knowledge of the company?
- How are the questions addressed, which according to you will be at the center of the negotiation?
- Which information will be requested (or will have to be obtained) and at which stage of the negotiation?
- Does the documentation rely on information that can easily withstand due diligence investigations?
How to answer these questions?
- By identifying what makes the specificity of the company at the same time from a synthetic point of view (strategy, business model, …), and from an analytical point of view (markets, products/services, organization, management, production means, technologies, financial data, …).
- By anticipating the questions of the persons making the investment / financing decision.
- By focusing on information answering these key questions, then by analyzing them with an adequate level of details.
- By identifying on which elements, the due diligence investigations will focus:
– Depending on your sector of activity.
– Depending on the specific situation of the company. - By having a Vendor Due Diligence carried out, if you are selling and do not know your company inside out.
- If you are buying:
– By being accompanied by advisors and/or experts complementing your management’s know-how.
– By building up a task-force in charge of analyzing the transaction, preparing and implementing the post-merger integration.