M & A - assistance needed

We are financial advisory firm and I am a financial Analyst. My company is handling M & A transaction for the first time. Thus, I am uncertain as to what the procedure will be. My boss wants to know the whole due diligence process - operational, legal, financial. I will be doing the valuation, so I am digging back into my CFA L2 books. I need assistance from someone who has handled such transaction. Or if there are good online based resources on this topic, please guide me. I don’t have enough time to read the whole book on mergers & Acquisitions.

May I ask why your firm is taking on such a project when you clearly dont have the skills?

transferpricingCFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > May I ask why your firm is taking on such a > project when you clearly dont have the skills? How do you get the skills without doing it first? Somewhere someone must have done the first M&A transaction without having done it before. I work for an asset management firm and we underwrote a capital raising a while ago, which we had never done before. It was no drama.

This is scary. An advisory firm that doesn’t know the DD process. wow. What firm are you with?

How did you win this deal? Are you a niche firm with close relationships with your customers?

newsuper Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > transferpricingCFA Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > May I ask why your firm is taking on such a > > project when you clearly dont have the skills? > > How do you get the skills without doing it first? > Somewhere someone must have done the first M&A > transaction without having done it before. > > I work for an asset management firm and we > underwrote a capital raising a while ago, which we > had never done before. It was no drama. Dude, you obviously had someone there with the skills and knowledge. To think an ‘advisory’ firm is ‘advising’ on something it seems noone in the firm has experience with is scary.

this is most likely a firm with a few accountants which advises clients on basic financial reporting! they won an M&A project for a small client by offering some ridiculously low fee. Am I right? I’ve seen this crap around

do you work for Citadel?

If you guys are looking for a subadvisor of sorts, I’m a Corporate Development Manager for a Fortune 500 and can guide you through the process, including all the legal docs. We can work out an hourly agreement or a flat fee if you want. Let me assure you that if you guys have never done this before there is no amount of Googling that will help. You’ll spend many times more defending yourself in court after the deal is botched than you’ll ever get in fees.

Mobius Striptease Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > this is most likely a firm with a few accountants > which advises clients on basic financial > reporting! they won an M&A project for a small > client by offering some ridiculously low fee. Am I > right? I’ve seen this crap around +1

Are you representing the seller? You will need an M&A attorney pronto. They’ll handle the confidentiality agreement, LOI, etc… Valuation at minimum should include dcf, comps, and precedent trans (maybe lbo as well). The L2 curriculum will teach you the theory behind a few of those methods, but will not show you how to perform them in detail. Do you have access to CapIQ?

Ok my reaction was similar to all of you guys’, i.e. wtf. But actually it’s obviously a very small and simple transaction. For that I guess you don’t need much. In any case a lawyer will be involved for the legal part, so they need someone to ensure they don’t pay too much and assist in negociations. Or maybe the TS works in a firm which will be useful for obtaining financing, or maybe the client is an entrepreneur which wants out, and the TS works at a firm which may know buyers, or, or…

we can speculate all we like until this cowboy gives some answers!!

we can speculate all we like until this cowboy gives some answers!!