Financial buyers include Private Equity Firms (PEGS), Venture Capital Firms, Family Investment Funds and Hedge Funds. These financials buyers are typically looking for a return on investment. They are not necessarily industry oriented. In fact, they are often industry agnostic.
They are usually looking for a stand-alone entity that they can add systems and build on. These financial engineers often use leverage to structure their transactions and place an emphasis on the company’s cash generating capabilities to service debt. This process is called a “Recapitalization”.
In a recapitalization the owner exchanges cash for equity conveyed based on a current market value of the company. The average hold is between 3 and 7 years and in a second offering the “second bite of the apple occurs”. It is not uncommon for the second bite to be as large as the first, but certainly this is not guaranteed.
Using a typical 80%/20% split let’s value the company at a 100 million dollars. A common Recapitalization structure would look something like this. The owner and buying group agree that the company could carry 50% of the structure as debt. This means capital in the transaction is 50M. The owner is asked to put in 10M to get 20% of the company. The financial buyer puts in 40M. The owner receives 90M for the market value of the company and retains 20% percent of the equity in the go forward of the company.
Transactions with financial buyers are more of a partnership rather than an 100% purchase. They often will buy a controlling interest in a company but minority acquisitions are not uncommon. Especially for high performing companies. Why would the owner of a performing company want a financial buyer? To remove risk, gain liquidity, receive financial underwriting and an advisory team.
Financial buyers can be very flexible in their acquisition strategy and structure.
Financial Buyers are not necessarily operators and often want to get behind a management team or the current owner to protect the operational viability of the company. Financial buyers provide more than money. There is usually an advisory role such as you would see with a board helping you to direct and build a vision for corporate growth. Financial buyers usually have a system in place to facilitate add-on acquisitions. After a platform acquisition they often buy additional companies to gain market share, mimicking a strategic buyer, with the goal of maximizing their return when they exit the investment.
I have heard many times over the year’s financial buyers ruin good operational companies. The evidence just doesn’t support this, in fact financial buyers often build phenomenal companies with their thoughtful approach to the numbers and systems. Most sellers should look harder at this type of buyer to understand how to raise the value of their company and implement what is important to attract the Financial buyer’s attention.