How many companies do you need to look at to do a deal? This is a common question we get from clients. Experience tells us you need to look at about 100 companies in order to execute one deal. That doesn’t mean you go through formal due diligence with 100 companies, but you do need …
Tag: Prospect Funnel
How You Can Get an Owner to Say “Yes” to Acquisition
When contacting an owner about acquisitions, don’t be surprised to hear “no.” Most owners, when asked about selling their “not-for-sale” business will automatically refuse simply because it’s unexpected. Remember, for an owner focused on running the day-to-day operations of his business, this offer is coming out of the blue. There are, of course, a number of …
The Acquisition Librarian – Organizing Your Data
“Keep your pipeline full,” I often tell clients when speaking about their acquisition prospects. By this I mean that in pursuing M&A you should research 75 to 100 companies. That’s a lot of companies and research, which of course you must record in an appropriate manner. How can you keep track of all your data? …
Key Insights from “M&A as Competitive Advantage”
By John Dearing, Managing Director McKinsey & Company recently published an article on using M&A as a tool to give your company a competitive advantage. The article addresses some key aspects of M&A we find important at Capstone. You should develop your strategy first when approaching M&A and always have a full pipeline of acquisition …
The Prospect Funnel
If you have started to look at individual acquisition prospects, you may be wondering, why use a prospect funnel? That’s to say, why pursue lots of possible acquisitions, rather than focus on just one? I have frequently been approached by clients after a deal suddenly fell through—a deal they had been working on for months …
From Markets To Prospects: “Taking The Emotion Out”
When you’re on the path of acquisition, there’s a shift that happens when you turn from the bigger strategic questions to looking at individual prospects. Now you’re dealing with real companies and real people. At this point, I have noticed that acquisition teams tend to become much more emotionally involved—sometimes to the detriment of the …
