We help Private Equity firms and Corporate acquirers make sound investment decisions on new platforms, add-on acquisitions and divestitures.
Our M&A work includes:
Buy-Side Commercial Due Diligence
In-depth analysis on a target company, including market opportunity, and customer and competitive positioning
Revenue Synergy Assessments
Objective, evidenced-based analyses of specific revenue synergy opportunities to inform a business combination
Integration Planning and Support
Develop integration plans and support execution to achieve deal objectives, including synergy value capture
Exit Readiness
Commercial performance ‘tune up’ ahead of a planned exit to maximize near-term sales and margin growth
Sell-Side Commercial Due Diligence
Objective analysis of a business’ commercial positioning and prospects, including potential growth opportunities available to a new owner
Groove Strategy Group’s approach to M&A reflects our ownership mentality.
We help our clients to understand better the opportunities that may be available to a target company under their ownership as well as the risks.
Our Differentiation:
- Focus on B2B companies, and the Industrials sector
- Access to many industry experts and participants that provide on-the-ground perspectives on issues that are important to our clients
- Experienced professionals that do the work – not an apprenticeship model
- Expertise gained through many post-merger integrations that help inform our upfront M&A work on what it will take to succeed
- Deep experience and track record in M&A with many transactions over 25 years on all sides of M&A transactions
Buy-Side Commercial Due Diligence
Private Equity firms and Corporates hire us to help them better under a target company’s markets, what customers think of the target and how the target is positioned against competitors.
We help identify, analyze and pressure-test our client’s thinking on critical assumptions made for an acquisition to be successful.
In the case of a Corporate acquirer, the acquisition of a new platform may represent a significant expansion outside the core business. We help our clients test critical assumptions on what it will take to grow the acquired business, such as capitalizing upon customer relationships, capabilities, geographic reach and channels.
Revenue Synergy Assessments
We help our clients to identify and assess potential revenue synergy opportunities that can be captured by two companies merging.
Our work focuses on identifying and assessing potential cross-sell and up-sell synergies that come from combining customer bases, product and service portfolios and geographic positioning.
Because today’s acquisition prices are typically high, acquirers need to dig deep to understand what customers want and how a combined company can offer greater value than either could alone. Acquirers sometimes make the mistake of assuming no revenue synergies in the deal model as they want to be conservative. While this may sound conservative, it is insufficient in today’s environment where customers may be looking to have a diverse supplier base. This could lead to a loss in business once the companies are combined.
We conduct thoughtful primary research to pressure-test a potential combination to understand customer needs, how they might respond to a change in their supplier base, and how they want to be served in the future. All of which provides our clients with a more in-depth understanding of the cross-sell and up-sell revenue synergy opportunities, the risks and how to integrate commercial organizations to capture the opportunities.
Integration Planning and Support
Groove Strategy Group works closely with our clients to develop detailed integration plans to help them achieve their acquisition objectives, capture synergy opportunities, bring organizations together, and mitigate risks.
We collaborate with our clients to:
- Define the overall integration approach, including objectives, goals, and targets
- Craft the integration strategy and operating model of the combined company
- Establish the Integration Management Office (“IMO”) and mobilize teams
- Support functional integration teams to develop detailed plans, including Day 1 plans, leveraging Groove’s integration playbooks
- Help to design the combined organization and retain key talent
- Provide change management and communications support
- Establish reporting and tracking, including synergy value capture
Benefits to our clients include:
- Confidence to achieve deal objectives
- Reduced risk of mis-starts, delays, and confusion
- Faster time to draft integration plans, prepare for post-close and realize deal objectives
- Support with power, influence and cultural challenges that can undermine the entire deal
- Better prepared for the next acquisition, which is especially important for “buy and build” strategies
Exit Readiness
Private Equity firms bring in Groove Strategy Group to help throughout their holding period for a portfolio company, but often about 12-15 months before they begin a sale process.
This allows for sufficient time to make necessary commercial changes and demonstrate clear improvement in sales and margins that can help with the exit story and valuation.
We help Private Equity firms and their portfolio companies to:
- Quickly assess commercial strengths to leverage and gaps to close ahead of a planned exit process
- Identify potential strategic and commercial improvement opportunities that can actioned quickly
- Prioritize improvements to ensure focus is on those opportunities that can move the sales and EBITDA needle
- Develop an action plan to move forward and execute
Sell-Side Commercial Due Diligence
We also assist Private Equity and Corporate clients with sales and divestitures.
Whether the need is to sell a portfolio company or to divest a non-core business, Groove Strategy Group is focused on helping our clients position the business for sale. We provide independent, evidence-based analysis on the company’s commercial position and future prospects.
Our work typically includes:
- Market segmentation, size and growth analysis
- Voice of the Customer analysis, including Net Promoter Scoring and Account health
- Competitive positioning analysis
- An assessment of potential growth opportunities that may be available to a strategic or financial buyer
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Contact Groove Strategy Group to discuss how we can help your company grow profitably.