M&A consulting is one of the core business areas at Consus Partner. We provide exclusive support to our clients in all aspects of a company acquisition or sale and we cover the entire transaction process, from the preparation to contract signing. We represent either the seller, a bidder or the management of the target company. Our clients come from across the spectrum of small and medium-sized companies, private equity funds, private investors and listed corporations.
Our strengths lie in handling transactions that require a refined understanding of procedural tactics. We have proven time and again that our services and solutions go well beyond the approaches taken by standard M&A consultants.
Our scope of services in the field of M&A typically includes:
- Executing competitive bidding processes
- Identifying transaction alternatives and creating purchase and sale strategies
- Providing procedural tactical consulting throughout the entire duration of the transaction
- Compiling feasibility studies for planned transactions
- Revising and editing financial plans and company valuations
- Identifying and contacting potential interested parties
- Coordinating and handling process management for involved parties (attorneys, auditors, tax advisors, etc.)
- Organizing and executing due diligence processes
- Moderating negotiation processes
Consus Partner advises clients on a broad spectrum from growth financing to acquisition financing for small and medium-sized companies. We operate without the constraints and conflicts of large organizations and offer our clients independent advisory services.
Whether you seek venture capital, debt capital or mezzanine financing (a hybrid of equity and debt capital), Consus Partner analyzes, structures and evaluates the funding options available from financial institutions and houses within the scope of a competitive process. We are also well familiar with complex financing structures such as recapitalization.
As advisors independent of any bank, we help set up solutions assuring long-term company financing and create transparency with respect to alternative financing approaches that are ideally suited to the strategic needs of our clients. We offer more than just intelligent financing proposals; we assist in implementing them through to contract signing with the aim of optimizing our clients’ financing costs and operating flexibility.
Our scope of services in the field of corporate finance typically includes:
- Selecting suitable financing structures and providers
- Negotiating with lenders and other financing providers
- Drafting financing plans and scenarios to determine suitable instruments and assisting with negotiations
- Accompanying negotiations and coordinating the process management with other involved parties (attorneys, auditors, tax advisors, etc.)
Financial Planning
Financial planning is always a critical element in the preparation of company acquisitions, divestments and financing. It also helps management and shareholders evaluate their strategic options and plan projected cash flows, for example, in the scope of credit financing or calculating investment. Thanks to our vast experience in this field, Consus Partner offers considerable expertise in how to model complex company, financing and market structures.
Controlling and Reporting Instruments
ERP systems such as SAP and Navision offer little support for the establishment of financing and liquidity plans or the analysis of different scenarios. Consequently, many companies are left to do so with tools they create in-house: tools that frequently cannot integrate cash flow planning.
Consus Partner has developed an extremely flexible multi-language planning and reporting system which allows to easily run scenarios and model business processes. It can be employed in a lean fashion without additional databases and the like and integrates with our clients’ IT systems. The Case study Sodawerk Staßfurt is an example of the development of a planning and reporting tool.
We have also developed other controlling instruments for our clients that, for example, link to multiple internal data sources and compile detailed information about the profitability of their customers and services. These allow them to run cost analyses on several 100,000 transactions per month.
Valuation Analyses
Financial investors use our valuation analyses to estimate the projected valuation of listed companies, especially with respect to squeeze outs, domination agreements and mergers. Small and medium-sized companies and conglomerates use our valuation analyses to assist with internal restructuring and in the preparation of acquisitions or divestments. In addition to discounted cash flow models, Consus Partner has plenty of experience conducting valuations based on the IDW S1 approach used for court-commissioned appraisals.
The value of a company involved in M&A transactions depends primarily on its projected future cash flows. This entails a number of challenges:
- Lacking transparency of the profitability of individual customers or business units
- Reporting systems that only depict the past and are not suitable for supporting decisions about the future
- Using “big data” for meaningful analyses
- Business areas with negative or insufficient results
Based on our vast experience in business analysis, we are able to create transparency and systems that support decision making by providing timely and continuously updated relevant information:
- Analyzing data from various systems to find causal links and determine the KPIs that are truly relevant for management of the business
- Setting up customer and project cost analysis systems to identify problem areas, also for clients who have a multitude of small customers
- Isolating problem areas, determining solutions and action plans, and establishing systems to monitor actions and results
Many studies demonstrate that the success of company acquisitions depends partly on how well they are integrated with the acquiror. Consequently, when we support transactions, we incorporate the integration plans of the interested parties from the beginning into the selection process.
As we have intensively worked with the company for sale during the transaction process and its preparation, and with the acquiring company during negotiations, we are frequently able to play a guiding or facilitating role in the subsequent integration period. Many M&A advisory firms are unavailable for this activity because it demands so much detail work. However, we have a real interest in the long-term success of the transactions we support and we are therefore happy to continue to partner with the companies.
As part of our post-merger integration services, we support clients mostly in their organizational, financial and commercial integration. However, we have also already run the entire standardization of sales processes, including the selection and introduction of a CRM system for several hundred employees.
During outsourcing projects tied to the acquisition of large company units, planning the subsequent transition and integration is often an integral part of the bidding process and we are able to lend our operating experience in this regard.