M&A Support that protects value and accelerates outcomes

Every successful transaction starts with clarity on objectives: value, timing, deal structure, and post-deal strategy. 

This stage is built around aligning stakeholders, assessing readiness, and crafting the equity story - the strategic narrative that explains why the business is attractive and how future value will be realised. 

Bigger Picture Finance can support at this stage by working with you to fix the basics: clean historical financials, clear analysis on key drivers of the business over time, management packs reconciled to statutory accounts, identification of one-off items that could mislead an interested party and reliable KPIs that underpin the financial performance. 

Identification of potential red flags early and being able to address them at this stage helps to minimise potential issues later in the process.

With the equity story and data room in place, your corporate finance adviser runs an initial controlled process to engage qualified buyers or investors, supported by a Teaser and / or Information Memorandum (IM) depending on the process. 

In parallel, management presentations are honed and financial models are locked to a defensible baseline with clear sensitivities. During this period, consistency is key - every number in the teaser, IM, and financial model must reconcile and should be justifiable. 

Bigger Picture Finance can support your management team and Corporate Finance adviser in preparing or reviewing / diligencing the relevant financial information or models, to ensure that what you present stands up to scrutiny and that the subsequent due diligence and Q&A process is fast, accurate and well-governed. 

Interested parties will make indicative "non binding" offers via your Corporate Finance adviser. Once assessed and discussed with the seller, the volume of interested parties is typically reduced to a few for the next stage. 

At this next stage, Buyers will conduct due diligence across a variety of business functions. Whilst the variety of due diligence can vary from deal to deal, almost all M&A processes will have some form of finance, tax and legal due diligence. Depending on the size and shape of your company, as well as the business sector you operate in, due diligence covering commercial, operational, technology, HR and ESG areas are all common, either through a Buyer's internal team or utilising independent 3rd parties.

This is the most intensive phase. Managing the flow of information, dealing with the volume of Q&A, at the same time as managing the day to day trading of the business can easily stretch the bandwidth of your management team and key individuals in your business supporting this process. 

At Bigger Picture Finance, our Fractional CFO and Finance Partnering services can provide you with an ad-hoc, short term solution for managing bandwidth concerns, allowing your core management team to either fully focus on the Transaction, or the day job, as required.

Once due diligence is completed, bidders submit binding offers, alongside their legal T&Cs in the Sale & Purchase Agreement.

Upon selection of the preferred bidder and as the legal documentation is negotiated and fine-tuned, attention quickly shifts to operational readiness and how your business will be integrated by the future buyer. 

If the deal involves a carve-out or integration, defining the Day 1 operating model and the first 100-day plan: who does what, on which systems, with what metrics can be critical to ensuring a smooth transition. 

The deal closing is not the finish line, it is just reaching the end of the current chapter of your business's story - a buyer will want to work swiftly to ensure value is realised post-deal through clean execution, synergy capture, and governance.