M&A, due diligence, valuation and integration
Working with companies focused on profitable growth has resulted in a number of career opportunities to participate in mergers and acquisitions, and the related due diligence and integration that comes with these transactions.
Ceco Door Products, where my final role was as CFO & CIO, engaged in a growth through acquisition strategy that resulted in the acquisition of five companies in the US, Mexico and Canada. In our first acquisition, I reverse engineered the model provided to us by the seller’s representatives and identified inaccurate assumptions that inflated the proposed valuation by a factor of almost two. Some years later, our newly created company, United Door Products was then sold successfully several years later at the recommendation of our management team, to Assa Abloy, a world leader in commercial architectural doors and hardware. I led the due diligence on our sale, and was intimately involved with the acquisition of the companies we bought.
Working as an independent business consultant, one of my primary engagements was as the liaison between the investment bankers representing the buyers of Arvin Meritor, an automotive replacement parts manufacturer.
I joined Iron Solutions as CFO shortly after it was purchased by several private equity firms led by Starvest Partners, the New York venture capital firm that was the lead investor on the IPO of NetSuite. This provided experience in a private equity setting. Iron was then successfully sold to Trimble, a leader in agricultural technology. In the sale, I created a strategic growth business model to facilitate the analysis and valuation of the company by prospective buyers. The model was described as “beautiful” by a consultant engaged to represent us on the sale. The lead financial executive from the buyer described the model as “the best one he’d every seen.”
I welcome the opportunity to assist in preparing models, analytics and reporting to assure the successful sale of your business for the highest possible valuation.
