There are exceptions to every rule, including the one that says owners of printing companies are better off not trying to arrange mergers and acquisitions (M&As) without professional guidance. While we don’t advocate going it alone, we have seen it done — and we have seen it work.
Some years back, we represented a selling owner in a major metropolitan market whose business had attracted the attention of the owner of a family business based in another city. Our client’s company became the buyer’s first strategic acquisition, and closing the deal gave him two things: a foothold in the seller’s market, and an appetite for further growth by the same means.
His next buy was of another one of our clients. Now he was ready to strike out on his own with the subsequent purchase of a business whose owner we introduced him to over dinner. In this instance, we didn’t have a formal agreement with the buyer or the seller — just the ability to bring two interested parties together through our knowledge of the marketplace and its principal players.
Learning by Doing
In retrospect, the buyer probably shouldn’t have flown solo for this deal, because what he ended up paying for the business was more than the price that we could have helped him negotiate. But by sharpening his understanding of the process, the experience taught him how to structure a transaction and see it through to closing. It was clear that he thrived on the dynamics of M&As, and after he had made his fourth acquisition — a digital firm — we knew that more would be on the way.
At this point, our relationship with him was consultative and advisory as he forged ahead with his strategic plans. Our role was to connect him with owners of companies that might fit within those plans, acting as an intermediary trusted by both sides.
We can’t stress enough the need for a neutral go-between in the opening stages of an M&A transaction. A cold-call approach by a buyer to a seller is liable to be misinterpreted as a hostile act, particularly if both are located in the same city or region. An intermediary known to both parties can keep the overture from being wrongly seen as aggressive or predatory.
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