With our help this household name company had previously formed a European Business Plan. A weakness highlighted was limited success, despite recurring attempts, to develop sales on the continent of Europe by selling from the UK. Analysis showed that the company could only meet its ambitious growth goals by making a suitable continental European acquisition.

Retained to lead this project, we scanned industry records, interviewed customers and used our contacts to develop a list of 50 candidate companies. Each of these was analysed, their strengths and weaknesses evaluated, and a short-list of 10 companies identified.

We then approached each of these companies, and conversations or visits filled in missing data and established their attitude to a possible takeover.

From this short-list we recommended 3 targets. On behalf of the buyer we visited these three companies, conducted preliminary negotiations in French (all happened to be in France though the short-list covered 5 different countries), then helped the due diligence and negotiation process leading to the successful acquisition of the top target company.

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