Exploring Mergers and Acquisitions
Are you willing to explore the mergers and acquisitions industry? In this episode of Incorporating Superpowers, host Justin Recla sits with Kison Patel, CEO, and founder of M&A Science. M&A Science is a business firm that helps business owners navigate and learn more about the mergers and Acquisitions industry. They provide educational services and training for those wanting to explore the M&A Industry as a career option, as well as information on how to navigate an M&A experience successfully. Tune in as the conversation will dive deep into the mergers and acquisitions process.
Justin Recla:
Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. My guest today is somebody that you’re going to want to listen to, especially if you’ve ever thought about selling your business, or if you’ve thought about buying another business. My guest today is Kison Patel. He is the CEO and founder of DealRoom, as well as the creator of M&A Science. This is going to be a really fascinating conversation. I know a lot of you out there have got into business are in business because you want to sell it off. You want to do something else, or perhaps you want to merge and grow into something even bigger. And I’m excited to have this conversation today because Kison has been doing this for quite some time. And he’s got some passionate projects as well about educating kids in this business space. So I’m just going to dive right into it. Kison, thank you so much for being here today.
Kison Patel:
Hey, thanks for having, Justin.
Justin Recla:
This is good stuff. So mergers and acquisitions. I know from our days in the corporate counterintelligence world, that we did a lot of third-party due diligence for people that were going through the M&A process. But I know there are a lot of people out there, especially our listeners right now, that may not know exactly what M&A is. I mean, they understand mergers and acquisitions, but it’s got such a depth to it. And it’s an industry that it’s not just about mergers and acquisitions. There’s a lot of information and a lot of things that go into this process in the M&A industry. So let’s start there. What does the M&A world look like?
Kison Patel:
Yeah, it’s a pretty big ecosystem. Because if you think about the various size of transactions, let’s start there. You can have small privately held businesses to larger companies that could be owned by private equity firms, or family offices. Then you could have even large publicly traded companies that are comprised of quite a few different business lines, and those businesses could actually go for sale as well. And then when you look at a transaction, there are typically two sides of that, the buyers and sellers.
Justin Recla:
And how many layers are there in each one of those types of transactions? How many different things have to be taken into consideration for a successful M&A to occur?
Kison Patel:
Yeah, we look at the stages. So when you have, let’s say, if you’re buying a company, you may go through this early stage of defining your strategy and identifying potential companies to acquire. And then your next phase is where you would do an evaluation exercise to get a sense of what that company is worth to your organization. And then you move into a diligence period where you’re going through making sure what’s represented is true and accurate, identifying risks, ideally preparing for what you’re going to do with that company after you close the deal. Then you have this contract negotiation phase where you’re ironing out the paperwork, getting a purchase agreement put together that you can sign, and execute, and that’ll lead to close with the deals officially completed.
Then you move over into this post-closed stage or integration. Could be post-merger integration is the common term used, and that’s where you will integrate the company into your organization. And typically you have objectives of getting synergies, either through cutting costs or finding ways to increase revenue. You’re going to put all those tasks in place. And if you do well, you’ll create some value. If you don’t do that well, you’ll destroy a lot of value.
Justin Recla:
So I want to be honest here. The one thing that stands out for me here is, wow, this is probably something you don’t want to take on or tackle yourself.
Kison Patel:
Yeah. Especially for an organization. It tends to be one of the largest exercises of change management that could happen. So we really need to stack it up with the right resources. If you’re an organization going through a first-time acquisition, there’s a steep learning curve. It would be a very expensive learning curve. So if you can utilize advisors along the way, various advisors for the legal components, maybe advising the transaction itself where you may want to work with an investment bank. And then there’s a whole myriad of consultants that tackle operational diligence, financial diligence, integration, planning, and execution.
Justin Recla:
Yeah, there’s a lot that goes into this. And when we get back from break, we’re going to talk further about the merger and acquisition world, and what you need to know to set yourself up for success. Before we could do that, Kison, where can people go find more information about you?
Kison Patel:
Sure. Our website, mascience.com.
Justin Recla:
Fantastic. Folks, go and take a look at mascience.com, and see what you can find. There’s a lot of information on this site, and there are a lot of great resources for you to dive into, especially as you’re starting off. If you’re looking to get involved in the M&A world or looking at buying or selling the business yourself. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
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