M&A Bootcamp
Gain a 360-degree view of the overall mergers and acquisition (M&A) process, so you can anticipate next steps and be more effective managing the deal process. Participants leverage case studies and frameworks to understand how different due diligence workflows fit together, identify patterns, and begin to think more like an investor.
M&A Bootcamp Course Overview
Essential Business Skills
- Habits That Create Value & Their Applicability to Careers in M&A
- Personal Execution Process: Imagining & Managing the Day©
- Fundamentals: Active Reading, Listening, & Notetaking
- Fundamentals: Synthesize & Reflect
- Fundamentals: The Art of Asking Good Questions
- Fundamentals: Framing, Language, & Communication
The M&A Process
- Cast of Characters: Buyers & Sellers and Their Many Advisors
- Financial vs. Strategic Investors
- Different Types of Investors & Form of Investment
- Where Investors Sit Along the Risk / Reward Continuum
- Primary vs. Secondary Capital
- Pre-Money vs. Post-Money Valuations
- Business Lifecycle & The Investment Continuum
- Major Milestones in the Transaction Process
- Common Diligence Workflows & Third-Party Advisors
- M&A Process Considerations & Impact
- Diligence Advisory Firms & Process Type
Foundational Questions©
- Introduction to Foundational Questions©
- Foundational Questions© as the Question Behind the Question
- Project / Client Foundational Questions©
- Company / Target Foundational Questions©
- Foundational Questions© Exercise
Learning to Think Like an Investor
- How Businesses are Valued
- Relative and Absolute Value
- Free Cash Flow (“FCF”)
- Three Sought-After Attributes of FCF
- Desirable Business Traits & Their Impact on FCF
- The Importance of Perspective
- Risk & Opportunity
- Billionaires Brawl
Strategic Investor Overview
- Varied Acquisition Strategies (Serial vs. Episodic Acquirers)
- Transformative Acquisitions vs. Tuck-in Strategies
- M&A Diversification Strategies
- Vertical vs. Horizontal Integration Strategies
- Strategic Acquisition Rationale
- Different Types of Synergies (Hard vs. Soft Synergies)
- Other Select Considerations
Private Equity Overview
- Private Equity vs. Institutional Private Equity
- Private Equity by the Numbers: PE’s Prominence & Reach
- How a Buyout Works
- How Institutional Private Equity Works
- Investment Horizon / Hold Period
- Private Equity as Patient Capital
- How PE Firms are Structured: A Simplified Example
- Private Equity Firm Activities
- The Investment Box / Investment Criteria
- Understanding the Private Equity Deal Funnel
- Fees Charged by PE Firms to Portfolio Companies
- How Private Equity Returns Are Measured
- Three (Legal) Ways Private Equity Funds Make Money
- Understanding Add-ons & Roll-up Strategies – Examples
Due Diligence Defined
- Due Diligence Defined
- Intuition Building: Due Diligence Applied to Other Asset Purchases
Select Diligence Frameworks
- Foundational Questions© Revisited
- Prioritization & Decision Gates
- Building Intuition & Establishing Bookends Using Fermi Math
- Finding Insights in Contradictions
- SOPs Create Consistency & Efficiency
- Using Checklists to Reduce Error Rates
The Cost of Diligence Misses
- Select Examples of Diligence Gone Wrong
Case Study: Prioritizing Diligence to Enhance Decision Making*
- PowderCo/BeverageCo Case Study: Team Exercise & Class Discussion
- Prioritizing & Identifying Key Business & Diligence Issues
- Understanding Revolving Line of Credit / Borrowing Base Mechanics
- Diligence Scoping Best Practices
*Only available as part of the live course.
Case Study: Applying Pattern Recognition*
- Identifying Business Characteristics & Their Impact on Value
- Team Exercise and Class Discussion / Presentation
*This is not part of the standard M&A Bootcamp course, but it is an available add-on selected by some clients given the interactive collaborative nature of the case. This add-on requires a little pre-work (actively reading a detailed case).
