M&A Forum

Marty's Blog

September 2007 - Posts

  • An Exciting Time

     

    As we prepare to announce our launch, and introduce our strategic partners, we are within weeks of enabling searches of listed companies for sale and turning on buyer's profiles. For those at the M&A Forum, this is a very exciting time.  To see a Fortune 500 company business development guy go online and enter their profile/mandate or "just-what-exactly-they-are-looking-for" is pretty cool. It is also cool to get a listing of 8 companies, revenues ranging from $5m to $30m that are for sale from an international boutique bank in some of the hottest service and outsourcing segments in our universe. This is also cool. 

    We expect to have nearly 300 companies listed for sale by the end of the 4th quarter, so stay tuned.

    p.s.  The KKR/First Data Corp deal did get finished. A big bullet avoided.

    marty



  • KKR Loan Terms

    I have just returned from meeting in India with a new buy-side BPO client and read the great news about KKR and their banks agreeing on new covenants in their loan agreement for the first data acquisition. Why should you care? Well, since there is anywhere from $350b - $450b of debt hanging on the backs of the large money center banks that have been promised to private equity groups, that currently are not attractive to traditional syndicate lenders, and can't fund, this creates a dilemma for the market - a huge backlog.

    Up until now, the market has been frozen and nothing has been happening. Investors won't buy the loans, and the banks refused to honor their loan commitments. When these loans were negotiated, the market was more favorable to buyers, and the then current thinking was they could be sold to some investor, somewhere. Whether the deal was thinly capitalized, had poor EBITDA/Interest coverage or new fangled terms like borrower friendly PIKs and so forth, that world changed.

    The fact that the first of these suspended deals has been re-negotiated is good for all. Now let's see if investors will have an appetite for it and will eat that dog food.

    marty



  • Welcome to the M&A Forum

    Welcome to the M&A Forum. This site was built just for you. We have leveraged 70 transactions over 10+ years, advising buyers and sellers of various sizes, ranging from less than $1m in revenue, to greater than $1.8b, across 4 continents, in the services, hardware/software, outsourcing and technology sectors.  Do you know what we have learned? That it is just as hard to complete a small deal as it is a large one. The key to creating an effective and liquid marketplace for small and medium companies, is to simplify and reduce the cost of the "finding component" and simultaneously, centralize and outsource some of the analytical and execution skills to hold costs down and provide large company service capabilities.

    The M&A Forum is where IT companies from around the world gather to study the state of the IT M&A market, by segment, by geography, by skill set and technology. Who sold to whom for what price and why? Further, you can learn the intricacies of the M&A process and going from the general to the specific, exactly how to sell your company, raise equity or find various types of debt. Think of us as the right side of your balance sheet. If it's there, we can help. We are also a place where buyers can find those hard to find assets that they have been diligently searching for, but did not know where to look. I think of it as the match.com for IT.

    We promise sellers they will have at least one meaningful introduction or we will refund your subscription fee, no questions asked. We know buyers will be delighted because whether you are in Sunnyvale or Mumbai, London or Toronto, our selection of fine targets will more than wet your whistle.

    We can be sure of this because of our strategic partners, which we will be announcing over the next months, will drive listings and activity to our site. They include a trade publisher/webzine firm, a Fortune 500 global supply chain operator and general business publishers/company data firms who cover various niches. All have core competencies that can promote and drive quality to our site.  

    We expect to exit ‘08 with over 3,000 qualified listings of various flavors and types of IT firms and to be recognized as the go-to world wide site, the upper right quadrant, for making things happen in IT M&A.

    If you are looking to do something with your company - sell, raise equity or debt, or buy - you have come to the right place. Sign up, and stay tuned for more. We're glad you are here.

    marty