Acquisition target identification & screening

Who the client was

“They are one of the worlds largest hardware companies, but interestingly they had little merger experience at the time we began working with them.”

Why they looked to us for help

“Their strategy involved purchasing a service company to help “wrap” their hardware offerings within a set of broader solutions. Due to their size, they could not conduct research themselves without alerting competitors and likely acquisition targets. Although they had developed a list of targets and obtained secondary research on these companies, they needed to know which ones to approach first.”

What we did for them

“We analyzed their strategy and built an acquisition screen made up of the capabilities their strategy required. Then we began the process of conducting primary research on the companies. In the process of we were able to eliminate many of the companies from consideration. Most, failed to meet the capability screen while a few had organization or ownership issues that rendered them unattractive.”

“We ended up adding one company to the target list, and eventually narrowed their focus to three likely companies which were a good strategic and cultural fit, appeared to be acquirable and did not raise any prima facie integration issues."

What was the benefit

“My client was able to find out which companies to approach first. They also obtained significant market intelligence to guide initial discussions with target companies. All this was achieved quickly, without disclosing their intent to the market.”