As the seller of a thriving business, you’re accustomed to making the tough decisions, negotiating deals and, far too often, prioritizing the demands of the business ahead of nearly everything else in your life. Your well-honed skillset has made your company a success, brought you to the mergers and acquisitions party, and will be beneficial …

Becoming a Master M&A Dealmaker When Selling Your Business Read More »

Potential M&A acquirers request a massive amount of information pertaining to every aspect of a target business. They present the seller with a due diligence request list, which typically runs over multiple pages, detailing the information they want to review to get comfortable with negotiating the definitive agreements and closing the deal. Typical requests include …

Selling Your Business: The Data Room Read More »

Tied closely to our most recent previous article outlining 6 deal-killing mistakes M&A sellers make is the criticality of adequately preparing your company for sale. While almost all business owners can appreciate the guts, hard work, and prolonged dedication required for them to build their business over a period of years or even decades, the …

Preparing Your Company For Sale Read More »

For many business owners, the sale of their company is a once-in-a-lifetime undertaking. A common scenario involves negotiation between a first-time seller who has spent years devoted to building a company and a seasoned buyer with many acquisitions under their belt (especially private equity and public company buyers). The merger and acquisition (M&A) process has a steep learning curve and, …

6 Ways Sellers Unwittingly Kill M&A Deals Read More »

Part 1 of a 2 Part Series  You’re an experienced buyer with a handful or more of M&A deals under your belt. You’ve identified a willing target company, a performer in an industry you know well, one that ties into your acquisition strategy – no small feat! You have financing ready to go and know …

3 Ways Buyers Can Kill A Perfectly Good M&A Deal   Read More »

The massively popular ABC reality show Shark Tank puts entrepreneurs in one of the most high-pressure situations you can imagine – pitching their business ideas to venerable titans of industry on national television. I enjoy watching the show, and through my work with countless founders and investors, I’ve also found that the common mistakes made by hopeful …

4 Lessons From Shark Tank: Be a Founder, Not a Flounder Read More »

Theranos, a spectacular American business crash-and-burn, is the start-up that keeps on giving – in the form of lessons for founders, CEOs, and investors. Once a technology and media darling embraced by investors, Theranos’ inevitable demise came when it failed for 15 years to produce promised results. What’s more, its downfall came with a huge price tag, costing investors more than $900 million. If you’ve read Bad Blood, the …

The Amazing Tale of Theranos: What it Means for Founders, CEOs, and Investors Read More »

What are Disclosure Schedules? Disclosure schedules are formal legal attachments that accompany the definitive purchase or merger agreement in an M&A transaction. Think of disclosure schedules as a series of exhibits to the definitive agreement. The content of the disclosure schedules is either “incorporated into” the definitive agreement, or it qualifies and supplements the terms …

M&A Disclosure Schedules: What They Are and Why They Matter Read More »