Meritus Capital’s sell side services are based on the concept of maximizing the value of your company while preserving the confidentiality and integrity of the sale process.
Our approach is to do the upfront research to identify the most logical buyers and develop a customized marketing plan for each prospect. We do not generally use a standard pitch book for sell-side engagements. While there are some documents that every serious prospective buyers would need (for example, current historical and projected P&L statements and balance sheets, EBITDA adjustments, details of operating expenses, client concentration analysis, client retention analysis, organization chart), prospective buyers vary tremendously in what they wish to see. Our approach to providing information to prospective buyers is to do this in stages rather than assuming or guessing what is required and presenting it all upfront. We use a stage gate approach, releasing appropriate information at each stage of the discussion. This customized approach has numerous advantages:
- Avoids the impression of “shopping around” a deal that comes from preparing a standard pitch book;
- Avoids bringing up unnecessary complications from raising issues the buyer might not actually have been concerned about;
- Helps maintain confidentiality; as we would not release the more sensitive information until we were well into the process and were convinced the buyer is sincere ; and
- Saves our client time in assembling (potentially irrelevant) information and having meetings with curious idlers (there are many!)
The following are the services and steps we focus on when representing a seller:
- Setting financial and non-financial goals and objectives with sellers;
- Valuation;
- Prepare descriptive memorandum;
- Develop profiles of most logical buyers;
- Offer solicitation and qualification;
- Strategic, financial and operational fit assessment;
- Selection of buyer;
- Transaction structuring and negotiation;
- Due diligence; and
- Closing
