sell or buy a resilience check and some learning’s
Are you a portfolio investor looking to discretely challenge and strengthen return from your portfolio?
- from experience we know there are some major threats than come from a hunch that rapidly turn out to be a complete crisis, that could have been averted years before if we were involved earlier. we are experts at smelling and identifying and catching the rat! the bar too is often set far too low squandering value and management often welcome support. icebreaker know what we are doing and are on THEIR side!
Are you a corporate finance intermediary facing an operational issue making the business difficult to sell?
- many businesses are stalled or the owners suggests a sale when its not the right time or in fact owners often just want a means of getting out to do something different! leaving a stalemate. we can work on the owners side to get through to their objectives and deliver the plan for the corporate finance house and owners best interests
if the sale is a way off what does excellent or even good looks like for that business, and is there a plan to get there to achieve a sale?
- we find owner managers need help to get there and someone dispassionate without a narrow objective to get through to them to support their decision making. we align our interests to a successful outcome to suit the outcome in terms of cash fees, options or equity; whatever works best
businesses with a strategic sale option that you reject as are under performing but have latent potential or structural e.g. succession issues?
- icebreaker can provide other funding options and or a different e.g. MBI as suits the situation
Faced with a business that does not fit your strategic sale partners requirements or in terms of scale etc that may be of interest diverting to icebreaker to look at?
- we find that smaller deals by their very size are unattractive but can provide exceptional growth opportunities; eg niche engineering businesses
Dithering management unsure of a sale, sell too early or have unrealistic sale expectations?
- icebreaker can help to align expectations and get the owners to a pragmatic solution quickly as well as providing a team to get an accurate assessment if the target we are willing to put our names against to deliver. many plans on paper look fine but in fact are impossible to realise; we bring pragmatism
Are you a business owner looking to do something different, retire, build on what you have achieved and yet maximise a good return on your exit?
- icebreaker can help to ascertain if thats the best option to meet your interests and or what is the best way to get there with our names on and committed to the plan too!
Is it the right time to realise value through a sale and whats the best timing for the management to exit?
- many professionals contacted 1st in line are purely focused on a sale icebreaker can bring a range of options in order to provide some options
Would you benefit from operational and executive support to achieve a sale over the next few years?
- icebreaker can provide a hands on executive to intensively support the upfront aspects to get the ball rolling and break down any barriers and realise a plan. during this process we will be developing management capability to this themselves and select MBI teams along the way not necessarily up front
how realistic is your DD, is it achievable can the management team achieve the outcome, what wont happen how long will it take?
- we can support VC due diligence and like to be involved as far as possible up front so that we are involved in creating the best strategy rather than picking up someones else’s plan, which often we feel misses many opportunities
how does this work along side an IBR? we welcome the challenge of an IBR to check the outcome and financials, as we do not provide an audit function. do you create reports or IBRs?
- whilst we will identify the brutal facts and get it into action often this requires getting the plan from inaction into action. Creating external reports is a waste of time, unless some specifics which are best to verify. We develop management teams and work with them to create and deliver their own plans to achieve the outcome we agree. icebreaker then make sure it stays on track and intervene in every way possible to ensure it happens
Would you prefer to exit before the sale of the business?
- many owners are just looking to get out of the day to day running of the business and we can make this happen for them
Does the business need to become a shining growth star to support and make a sale to meet the shareholders expectations? many business owners are somehow expecting to retire and sell their business without a plan to do so; we can support them realize this objective
what are the fees / reward model?
- icebreaker align our fees and reward model to share risk and upside, with a long term view that ties key stakeholder in to support the transition. We have the formal structure to do this as a team and ensure the process is impartial in terms of realising the optimal result regardless of the proprietary interests of the team
how do you resource these projects?
- icebreaker find what works best is to identify the lead and team to flexibly an resourcefully plug par time gaps first take a view of management capability then put in the chair, MBI team etc as the situation evolves and oversee the sucess of the whole process. Many chair led processes become proprietary and squander an opportunity to maximise value as whilst sectors may look the same the scenario and challenge can be completely different leaving the super Chair compromised. we have the structure to do this dispassionately and independently but icebreaker provide complete ownership of achieving the plan up front, and we will recover mistakes at our inconvenience to get back on track
if you would like to discuss these challenges icebreaker are absolute experts in resourcefully addressing these matters, call us to discuss in confidence
