Experienced Austin Financial Executives Robert (Bob) Kay and Laine Holman Affiliate with Corporate Investment

Robert (Bob) Kay, an experienced executive in finance, investments, private equity intermediary, banking, and private business management, and his long-time business associate, Laine Holman, a seasoned CFO, have joined Corporate Investment, an Austin-based financial advisory firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions and business sales.

“We are excited to join Corporate Investment and use our years of experience in business operations, deal making, capital raising and private equity investing to help our clients,” said Kay. “Corporate Investment has a well earned reputation in the region as business intermediary and merger and acquisition experts. With mergers and acquisitions picking up steam in Central Texas, we are in the right place to help owners get the most value from their transactions,” Kay added.

Most recently, Mr. Kay has led Excelleration Partners, an early stage growth company consultancy and capital raising advisor, after having served for six years as EVP/COO/CFO at Drilling Info, Inc., an online oil and gas data provider. While at Drilling Info, Bob partnered with CEO Allen Gilmer in leading the company through an explosive growth phase and eventual control sale to a NYC-based private equity fund.  

Prior to his most recent career stop as Consulting CFO to Durbin and Bennett Tax Advisors, Mr. Holman served as CFO to The Kucera Companies, a full-service commercial real estate company from 2003-2011. Kay and Holman partnered during the 1980s and 1990s within several business entities controlled by Robert W. Hughes and the Prime Cable family of companies.

Serving as a M&A team at Corporate Investment, Kay and Holman will lead clients through the sale preparation and sale of their businesses. Their diverse and combined business experiences have provided them deep experience and insight into the business sales process.

A native of Austin, Mr. Kay earned a BBA in General Business with an accounting concentration from The University of Texas in 1974. Mr. Holman is a native of Taylor, Texas, and is an Honors graduate in Accounting from UT Austin in 1981.

About Corporate Investment

Corporate Investment, founded in 1984, is a leading merger & acquisition firm based in Austin, Texas, representing companies throughout Texas. Corporate Investment works primarily with the owners of private companies in a variety of industries, and their potential acquisition or merger partners.

http://www.corpinvest.com

Robert (Bob) Kay

Laine Holman

Q4 2016 M&A Update: When a Business Owner Receives “The Call”

When a Business Owner Receives “The Call”

As a business owner, perhaps the most flattering event that may occur is an unsolicited call from a “buyer” who asks, “Would you like to sell your business?” Do you turn down that call? Certainly not! Someone is calling to pay you lots of money, perhaps top dollar, for your business that you have worked so hard to build. So you take the call, and the buyer asks to set up an introductory meeting. The buyer could be a strategic or financial buyer that believes, “Your business is a great fit for our acquisition strategy.” That statement translates in the business owner’s mind to, “This buyer will pay top dollar for my business.” However, the business owner is about to begin an extremely complex and emotionally taxing process that will engage him/her in many, many hours of data gathering, meetings, information exchange, financial questions, legal questions, intense negotiation, and hopefully, a positive outcome. Although that outcome will more likely occur 6-9 months down the road, if at all.

So the real question the business owner needs to think about is, “Am I really ready to sell my business?”

Most of the time, the seller will not have really thought about the answer to that question, which is much more complex. Do you have the answers to each of the following questions?

• What is my business really worth?
• What will the net proceeds of a transaction total, after paying off the business debt and income taxes?
• What amount will I need to net from the transaction to maintain my current lifestyle, and achieve my financial goals? 
• What will I really do after the sale (extremely important)?
• Are there issues in my business that may cause problems during due diligence (management team, customers, suppliers, legal, etc.)? 

The problem with negotiating with only one buyer

However, the question that most sellers have not considered is this, “If I only negotiate with one buyer, will I ever know if I received the best price?” There is a very old saying in the M&A world, “If you only have one buyer, you don’t have a buyer, they have you!” The buyer controls the timeline, controls the information flow, and controls the process – they have all of the leverage. At a minimum, the business owner should engage an M&A professional to level the playing field. The best case would be for the seller to engage an M&A professional to run a “limited process” in parallel with the unsolicited offer.  The investment banker prepares a brief outline of the business, and contacts 6-10 of the best possible buyers, and will usually find other interested parties. This strategy shifts the leverage back to the seller, and allows the business owner to “keep the buyer honest.”


One of the strategies of a buyer who is in an exclusive process with a seller is to stretch out the process, which is emotionally taxing to the business owner, emotionally draining over time, and results in “deal fatigue.” The buyer may keep asking for pieces of information, delay in actually putting a written offer together, or ask for concessions after the offer is made. Without any leverage, the seller’s only option is to walk away from the table and terminate the process, which is very difficult after significant time, energy, and emotions have been invested over 6-9 months. Most of the time the seller has invested so much time, energy, and resources in the transaction that they agree to concessions just to get to closing.


The worst result can be a transaction that does not meet the seller’s financial needs, falls apart at the eleventh hour after the buyer has obtained sensitive information, or the seller does not have any real plans for life after closing.

Case study

We met with the owners of an excellent business about 15 months ago, who had been approached by a strategic buyer. The owners are at retirement age, and very open to a transaction.  Almost 50% of the consideration for the business in the buyer’s current offer was in the form of an “earnout”, however, and that was a real concern. We suggested engaging our firm to work with that buyer to improve the terms of that offer, while also contacting 6-8 other possible buyers to solicit additional offers, for two important reasons. First, to gain leverage with the one buyer, and keep that process moving, and second, to let the seller know what other buyers might offer for the business. The seller chose to “go it alone” with the one buyer. Their CPA called us 10 months later and said that the deal never closed, and the seller is back to square one, weighing their options. The seller has now invested significant time, energy, and emotions into a process that did not produce a result, and will probably be starting all over again.

Conclusion

Selling a business is a significant event in the life of a business owner, and must be planned well in advance to achieve the best result. While it’s very flattering to receive “the call” from a buyer wanting to discuss buying your business, the reality is that a business owner should not begin the exit process without:

• Clearly establishing their exit goals (including timeline) and financial needs
• Knowing what their business is really worth
• Knowing what they will net from a transaction
• Having a team of top-flight advisors
• Possessing a clear understanding of what they want to do after closing. 

Our firm is routinely contacted two or three times a year by attorneys and CPA’s introducing us to business owners that received “the call,” and the transaction did not happen. They are now ready to engage in a well-planned, well-executed, competitive process designed to close a transaction at a fair price in the open market.

http://www.corpinvest.com

Q3 2016 M&A Update: Earn-outs: Uses, Pitfalls, and Opportunities

Earn-outs: Uses, Pitfalls, and Opportunities

What is an "Earn-out" as it relates to the sale of a business? An earn-out is a contingent payment agreement whereby the buyer agrees to pay additional money for the business upon the attainment of certain post-closing performance targets. An earn-out is a financial tool used to bridge the gap between the seller's price expectations and the buyer's perceived value for the business. The most common reason for a gap between the offer and the seller's price expectations results from the two parties to the transaction having differing views of "business risks." The sale of a business is extremely complex, and involves risk factors related to revenue, customer retention, the management team, and many others, which are viewed through different lenses by the buyer and seller.  

Let's remember - in an "all cash" purchase, the buyer has all the risk, therefore the selling price will usually be at the lower end of the spectrum. In a transaction with cash plus a promissory note to seller, there is some level of risk tied to the promissory note - so the seller can justify a price that is a bit higher than "all cash." If an earn-out is included in the transaction structure, the seller expects to receive more for their business, but the last piece of the consideration is tied to future events, so both parties share the risk.

Earn-out structures will be very specific to each transaction. A typical earn-out structure may start with "If revenue in year #1, year #2 and year #3 after closing is equal to or above these targets,  "X", "Y", and "Z", then the seller is paid a certain amount each year."  As simple as that concept sounds, each earn-out structure will be as unique as the business itself. Many times the seller wants the earn-out tied to gross revenue, while the buyer typically wants the earn-out tied to EBITDA. At that point, the negotiation begins, and the actual measured performance often ends up tied to a metric somewhere in between revenue and EBITDA. In our experience, the least amount of computations that must be made to compute the earn-out will result in the most desirable structure.

Our firm recently represented the seller in a transaction whereby approximately $6,000,000 of the price was fixed, and another $3,000,000 of the consideration was based upon an earn-out tied to gross profit earned each year for the first twenty four months after closing. This company was in a cyclical industry, and the seller believed that the industry would maintain their momentum for several years. The buyer was not willing to pay the full price without some part being tied to future performance. The seller was willing to stay with the business through the term of the earn-out, to insure that it would be met. This client has now collected the targeted payments for year one, and is now completing year two.

One tip to remember is that earn-outs should not be "all or none," but rather based upon incremental levels of the performance metric. They should also be structured whereby meeting the target on a cumulative basis over multiple years will still trigger payments, even if one year was below the target (a "lookback provision").

Our firm does not begin marketing a business with an earn-out in mind, but it may be an appropriate financial tool used to facilitate a transaction in certain situations. Earn-out structures are complex and require the seller to evaluate the risk they are willing to assume in utilizing that structure to achieve the maximum consideration. A seller will need an experienced M&A professional and transactional lawyer to carefully negotiate the earn-out and make sure their agreements are well drafted.

http://www.corpinvest.com

Q2 2016 M&A Update: Favorable Market

We are in an extremely favorable market for business sellers. Buyers have abundant capital to deploy, interest rates are low, and the economy in Texas is doing well – even with the pull back in oil prices. However, the best advice to a business owner that is thinking of an exit, is to “take control and start planning today”. Engaging experienced advisors who understand the business sale process will prove invaluable to the business owner who wants a successful outcome.

Two key issues to consider before beginning the process are outlined below:

Deal killers

As a business owner, your opportunity for the greatest influence on maximizing sale proceeds occurs before you go to market. Once you start the process of marketing your business to qualified buyers, the ability to correct the “deal killers”, is extremely limited due to the time factor. These must be solved before going to market. The most common “deal killers” are listed here:*

1.     The belief that you can sell your business today for enough money to satisfy your financial independence needs and wants. ( without knowing what your business is really worth and how much income you will need from the sale)

2.     The failure to reconcile your need for value with the market value of your business before going to market. (see #1)

3.     An exclusive focus on top line sales price.  ( i.e., have you done any tax planning, and analysis of net proceeds  from a transaction, including retained assets, and net working capital conveyed?)

4.     The failure to preserve a company’s most valuable asset. ( do you have “stay bonus plans” or other agreements in place for key employees?)

5.     The belief that you can negotiate alone. ( i.e., responding to an inquiry from an unsolicited buyer, and starting the process on your own. The sale process is a taxing and emotionally draining process for an owner, many times resulting in deal fatigue and a realization after closing that significant dollars were left on the table. A strong deal team and competitive process is the only method to realize the true market value.)

6.     An unwillingness to recruit the best possible players for your Deal Team. ( buyers will have experienced accounting, legal, deal, and tax advisors on their team. You need the same on your team.)

7.     The belief that owner-initiated pre-sale due diligence isn’t worth the time, effort or cost. (Conduct Seller due-diligence before going to market. This gives your deal team time to address and fix the issues that a buyer may uncover when it conducts its due diligence. Reducing the time between letter of intent and closing is key to a smooth transaction. )

8.     Seller remorse (The owner needs to be comfortable that they will not feel empty and insignificant after the sale, and need to be emotionally ready to turn over the company to a new owner. A recapitalization transaction may solve this issue. )

           

*As presented in Exit Planning: The Definitive Guide, by  John H. Brown, CEO of Business Enterprise Institute

http://www.corpinvest.com