What is M&A research anyway?
Gabe Galvez
February 19, 2018
Although we work with hundreds of middle market M&A firms supporting their research and other needs I still talk to people every day who do not fully understand how we help middle market M&A firms.
M&A research – the umbrella term.
M&A research used to be an umbrella term for all things not directly related with the transactional elements of doing a deal. This has changed as the M&A research service sub-sector changes to also mean research on the M&A industry (rather than the deals that it is comprised of). Now more often, it is expected that an M&A research provider be conducting primary research on transactions, which is actually not what we do. While we am hesitant to make any changes to our brand at this point in our business’ life cycle, one can’t help but wonder if another associative term would be more applicable to how we actually help the middle market M&A professionals we have worked with all these years.
Is deal preparation the new M&A research?
When asked what we do in a non-technical setting (like a dinner party), our answers have little do with M&A research. In fact, we almost always end up using the term ‘Deal preparation’ i.e we help M&A firms prepare a deal before it goes to market. Although this is a simplified answer, it is accurate. Our core capabilities still revolve around helping the M&A professional get transactions to market for less money than the cost of using internal dedicated support staff and tools.
This includes us supporting the following:
- prospect list building, buyer and investor identification
- industry reporting
- comp and valuation type projects
- CIM and Pitchbook prep
- recasting and financial modeling
- general analyst support (day to day back office help)
So, are we a deal prep company or M&A research firm? It depends on who you ask. While a growing portion of our business comes from supporting Private Equity groups as well, at our core we are here to make taking a deal to market less costly, less time intensive and less painful than it can be when you are running a small resource critical M&A firm.
Interested in learning more about how we can help your middle market M&A firm prepare deals to go to market? Wondering how we are different than a software provider or overseas outsourcer? Contact us today at info@captarget.com.
