Elke Wollank
German Public Auditor, Certified Tax Advisor, Partner, Corporate Finance
Are you looking to sell your company, a division or a shareholding, or to sustainably optimise your financing structure? Immediately after making this decision, our transaction services team is available to support you in the first steps. At this early stage, we offer you following consulting services:
- Support with an exit readiness review
- Creating a memorandum of information or financial fact book
- Support for business plans or financial modelling
- Comprehensive organisation of a data room
Through our consulting services, we add professional weight and independent transparency to your sensitive data, thus creating the basis for a successful transaction process. Our experience in these procedures allows you to continue to focus on your day-to-day business, while at the same time minimising the time and organisational overhead associated with a planned transaction. As a result, you receive all information identified as substantial from a single source in advance of the actual transaction.
Exit readiness review
One key success factor in the sale of companies or divisions is the willingness and the ability of the seller to successfully complete the exit process at the selected time. Our exit readiness review (ERR) analyses the status quo of sales preparation and the planned design of the sales process with respect to essential success factors, presenting measures required to effectively initiate the exit process for your company and reduce the risk of transaction failure. In this first step, we analyse the value and risk mitigation potentials with regard to financial, commercial, structural, strategic and operational aspects. Within the ERR, you benefit from our long-term experience gained in numerous transactions: prepare the object to be sold for the transaction, and maximise its value through meticulous preparation and a well-thought-out transaction structure.
Memorandum of information
The memorandum of information forms the basis of a sale where several potentially interested parties need to be contacted within the framework of a sale process. The memorandum of information thus provides an overview of the company or division to be sold, the market and the competitors. It is used thus for presentation and advertising purposes, and for enabling quick access to the object to be sold for a selected group of recipients, thus facilitating the decision on whether the addressee will or will not participate in the downstream transaction process. Thanks to our support in creating a meaningful and professionally prepared memorandum of information (or a whitepaper), you can initiate the sales process in the best possible way as the seller, and attract the interest of various potential investors; this will eventually lead to optimisation of the purchase price that you realise.
Financial fact book/financial data book
The financial fact book (FFB, also financial data book) is useful for clients in the sales process and in optimising the financing structure, taking both equity providers and borrowed capital providers into consideration. An FFB presents both historical and future-oriented financial data for investors in a structured and compact way. In contrast to vendor due diligence, neither plausibility considerations nor valuations are drawn up. In creating the FFB, we help you to identify, structure and describe essential financial data, as expected by equity providers and borrowed-capital providers.
Data room support
In the case of significant transactions, the potential buyers will typically expect a professionally prepared data room in which the relevant information is provided. We can support you in preparing and implementing the data room process, as well as in the downstream vendor due diligence process or M & A process.
Our support typically includes the following activities in particular:
- Advice on choosing the appropriate data room form (virtual or internal/external physical)
- Joint definition of data room rules and, if necessary, subsequent monitoring of compliance with the data room rules
- Actual set-up of a data room that affects your other business as little as possible
- Identifying the data required for the data room, as well as assistance in processing this information
- Help in supporting the data room during the visit by prospective buyers (supervision of the data room during opening hours, organisation and channelling of the query process, validation of the requested documents, confidentiality checks, etc.).
