Successful Acquisitions: A Proven Plan for Strategic Growth

You want to grow your business. Acquiring other companies can help enhance your brand, consolidate your operations, give you access to new technology, make you more attractive to customers and high-value employees, and block competitors from obtaining the same assets. Yet many company acquisitions fail, simply because those overseeing the deal fail to think strategically and drift into a purely reactive approach by seizing whatever opportunity happens to show up.

Successful Acquisitions introduces a better way to grow. Written by a mergers and acquisitions expert with more than $1 billion in transactions under his belt, this book offers a practical step-by-step plan for acquisition based on proven principles. Presenting a unique Roadmap to Acquisition, it shows how to:

• Build the Foundations by taking your bearings, establishing a viable strategy for growth, and conducting systematic market and prospect research

• Build the Relationships by making initial overtures, developing a dialog of trust, and beginning negotiations

• Build the Deal by getting down to the nitty-gritty of due diligence, deal structure, closing the transaction, and integrating the entities

You’ll learn how to make criteria-driven decisions, establish a team to craft a vision for where your organization wants to go, review your growth options and create a highly structured game plan, identify the highly specific criteria for an acquisition, and know exactly when to say “yes” or “no.” You will grasp the difference between valuation and price, and the difference between price and “the seller’s equation.” You will also learn how to select and use expert advisers.

There’s more involved in mergers and acquisitions than valuation formulae and negotiation tactics. Buying a company successfully depends on mastering the entire business puzzle. Fascinating and accessible, this book helps you adopt an integrated acquisition process that will allow you to leverage new opportunities and redefine your organization to flourish in a changing world.

DAVID BRAUN is founder and CEO of Capstone Strategic, Inc., one of America’s leading M&A consulting companies, which he created to meet the unique demands of mid-market companies and their corporate growth initiatives. The firm’s clients include small and family-owned businesses as well as Fortune 500 and multinational companies. His more than 20 years’ experience formulating growth strategies in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries has led to an acquisition success rate way beyond the industry average.

For more M&A news from David, visit the Successful Acquisitions website at: www.SuccessfulAcquisitions.net

Purchasing another organization may seem daunting, but the right acquisition can dramatically accelerate your business’s development. A complete roadmap to buying companies and achieving proactive strategic growth, Successful Acquisitions provides you with a logical, time-tested process for finding and buying companies. Filled with illustrative tales from the author’s own extensive experience helping small to mid-size organizations grow through acquisitions, this illuminating, down-to-earth guide covers everything from building the foundation for successful expansion, to growing the necessary relationships, to cementing the deal. You’ll learn how to:

• Conduct target research effectively and stealthily

• Know your position on the opportunity matrix

• Define your ideal prospect

• Lay the strategic foundations for a successful purchase

• Conduct the first, all-important phone call

• Build your negotiation platform

• Be tough while still protecting the buyer–seller relationship

• Bring the deal to a timely and successful conclusion

You’ll discover the value of a relationship-based approach to acquisition, why it’s best to look for companies that are not for sale, the importance of understanding “the seller’s equation,” why you must limit yourself to one reason for buying a company, and the benefits of a market-first strategy. The book provides an exact process for conducting a successful first meeting, explains why you need a multidimensional approach to valuation, identifies what you must always—and never—include in your Letter of Intent, and lets you in on how to successfully integrate both companies after the close.

When it comes to buying privately owned companies, the transaction is almost never just about the price . . . and understanding that mysterious “something” that falls outside the spreadsheets is often what makes or breaks the deal. Taking you through a sequence of 14 key steps—the Roadmap to Acquisitions—developed, tested, and refined through author David Braun’s two decades of service to growing companies, Successful Acquisitions includes all the tools and resources you need for buying a company, including a sample Letter of Intent, and much more.

Packed with insightful, straightforward guidance, this is an essential guidebook for recalibrating your business through the successful acquisition of another.