The Challenge
A major payments processor was looking to conduct a buyer-side due diligence for an automated invoicing company acquisition. An assessment was required to determine fit of capabilities within existing product offerings.
Further Advisory helped the client quickly pivot once it was ascertained the target was not viable due to weaknesses in both technology stack and information security. FA proactively began a rescan of viable targets based on the client’s desired capabilities to determine subsequent target companies.
Project Description
Further Advisory performed a rapid 3-week buyer-side due diligence of a target acquisition in partnership with client product, business development, technology, and finance leaders. Concluding that the target was not viable, FA conducted a market rescan that identified over 100 potential targets with capabilities best aligned with customer’s needs to build out an automated invoicing offering.
Outcomes Delivered
- Buyer-side due diligence. Reviewed 1000’s of pages of documentation from target company to ascertain capability fit. Led effort to determine key outstanding questions and conducted discussion sessions with target leadership to confirm actual product and customer assets.
- Market rescan for existing and new targets. Compiled master list of >100 targets – including previously assessed targets, and companies that conformed to expanded target criteria. Based on thorough research of each target’s capabilities within the Order-to-Cash or Procure-to-Pay value chain, customer networks, and other attributes, the acquisition target list was narrowed to a select set of candidate companies to perform detailed assessments on.
- Target deep dives. Created profiles for the final 14 candidates and reviewed with the client team. These assessments included detailed portraits of each target’s capabilities based on public information and identified outstanding questions.
- Target questionnaire. Provided a list of key questions for each of the 6 final group of targets that best matched the required capability sets. Partnered with client to select final list of candidates, and determine priority ordering for targets to pursue next
