Agents for Acquiring U.S. Companies

Our Services: Acquiring USA Based Companies for Our Clients

We act as agents for non-US based firms interested in acquiring a US based company. Our services include:

Finding Businesses to Buy

We have many years of successful experience finding companies to buy that are not listed for sale. We do this using a variety of methods including:

searching our proprietary databases of companies that have expressed interest in selling but aren’t ready to bring their company to market
contacting our network of business intermediaries, accountants, lawyers, and others who learn of owner’s intent to sell their companies before they are listed for sale.
contacting private equity groups and other investment companies that regularly sell their holdings, after several years of ownership
searching subscription based business listing databases that are searchable by industry, size, geography, and other factors

Approaching Prospective Targets

Approaching the owners of companies that are not officially for sale needs to be done very carefully. These gray area sellers are understandably suspicious of being contacted about the sale of their business. It is much too easy to just say "not interested".

Over the years, we have developed and refined strategies for approaching business owners about the possibility of selling their companies. Our approach starts with assurances of confidentiality, discretion, and the seriousness of the the inquiry. There are lots of brokers indiscriminately approaching companies offering to sell them, in hopes of picking up listings. We immediately need to assure prospects that we are not one of those companies. Instead, we assure them that we have a genuine and qualified client who is interested in discussions with them about possible acquisition.

Screening

While we narrow our lists of prospects to meet our client’s stated criteria, not every potentially interested target will be a match. We do the initial screening to be sure that a possible target may be appropriate based on our client’s stated criteria. We also make sure that their valuation and deal expectations are within the realm of reason.

Obtaining Information

To evaluate a candidate for acquisition, a lot of financial and other information is required. Seller are often reluctant to provide the requisite information. We will explain the need for information to the seller, assure him or her it will not be used inappropriately, and make sure you get the information you need in order to evaluate each opportunity.

Valuation

Oftentimes, our clients look to us to get an unbiased estimate of of a potential target’s value. We can produce full valuation reports for our clients that detail the methodology and the logic behind our valuation.

Offer and Deal Structure

We can help you put an offer together and define price terms, exclusions, and contingencies, for any target you choose to pursue.

Negotiating

All business acquisitions require a good amount of negotiation, both before and after an offer is made. We will help in those negotiations to assure you get the best deal possible.

Facilitating and Organizing

Every business acquisition deal requires a great deal of organization and facilitation. Documents need to be exchanged, accountants and lawyers need to be retained and managed, invariably questions and small problems crop up that need to be fixed. We can handle the facilitation and organization for you to make sure the deal stays on track and gets closed on time and on budget.

General Acquisition Consulting

We have been in the Merger & Acquisition business for a combined 30+ years. We will answer your questions, and advise you as needed, every step of the way from finding businesses to buy to closing the deal.

If you are interested in expanding your company to the USA (or buying a business in the USA for any purpose), we should talk about the advantages of acquisition, and the assistance that we can provide.