Guide to Successful Integration
Getting the integration right is critical to ensure that the business has a ground footing to accelerate the integration benefits of the merged business.
Alignment at the Executive level will be a critical step in ensuring that the integration is clear.
A large part of the integration is about people and communication. That is, taking people on the journey so they understand what the plan is, why we are driving each activity and how they can be involved.
Getting a business merger right is no easy feat. You need to make sure that your technology integration is on point, and you need to get everyone on board with the plan.
It's easier said than done. But that's why we're here! We'll help you make sure your merger goes off without a hitch and that you're ready to take advantage of all its potential benefits as soon as possible.
We have some tips for making sure your merger is a success:
Strategising for your merger is a team effort, and we've got the tools to ensure that you come out on top. We'll help you evaluate your strategy for success and make sure that no one gets left out of the equation.
Getting the integration right is critical to ensure that the business has a ground footing to accelerate the integration benefits of the merged business.
Alignment at the Executive level will be a critical step in ensuring that the integration is clear.
A large part of the integration is about people and communication. That is, taking people on the journey so they understand what the plan is, why we are driving each activity and how they can be involved.lation.
If you want to chat around integrations, reach out to Jo Hands on 0459826221 or email me on jo.hands@whiteark.com.au
Driving value creation
Jo Hands writes all about driving value creation. Value creation is a word that’s used a lot, but what does it mean? Creating value - customer, consumer and financial. When a company buys a business, they focus on value creation. The business case assumes that there is value to create. This value can be created by pulling either strategic or operational levers.
Value creation is a word that’s used a lot, but what does it mean? Creating value - customer, consumer and financial. When a company buys a business, they focus on value creation. The business case assumes that there is value to create.
Value can be created by pulling either strategic or operational levers:
Mergers and Acquisitions: Buy-and-build deals are where a Private Equity firm buys a company and aims to enhances that platform through add-on acquisitions.
Strategic Pricing: Strategic pricing incorporates best pricing practices and ensures that your pricing strategies, analytics and processes complement your business strategy. A product’s price is based on the value to the customer, or on competitive strategy, rather than on the cost of production. By creating strategic pricing policies, analytics, and processes, you can directly capture customer value and translate to shareholder value.
Distribution Strategy: Distribution strategy is a plan to make a product or a service available to the target customers through its supply chain - to make sure the it can reach the maximum potential customers at minimal or optimal distribution costs. A good distribution strategy can maximise your revenue and profits.
Geographic Expansion: With access to new markets, a business has the potential to build a new customer base.
Product Strategy: A product strategy outlines the desired outcomes to be achieved by the product including the end-to-end vision, and how it supports the company’s strategic objectives. The product strategy is brought to life through the product road map and can be used to support any tactical decisions that the company needs to make.
Product Innovation: Product innovation represents a new way of solving a problem a high number of consumers have:
There are no products on the market that address the problem statement - unexplored market spaces could potentially generate high profits or;
There may be other products on the market that address the problem but in a different way to your innovative solution
Digital Transformation: Digital transformation is the use of technology — software enabled, connected, transactions, and interactions, across all areas of a business. The goal of digital transformation is disrupting existing business models, improving customer experience, and creating operational efficiency to drive economic value creation.
Customer Segmentation: the benefits of customer segmentation include focus, competitiveness, expansion, retention, communications effectiveness and profitability.
Aftermarket Service Strategy: The concept of aftermarket service is as important as sales, the saying “it takes years to build a reputation but just moments to ruin it” addresses the importance of keeping a customer happy and satisfied. Aftermarket service does not generate any revenue for the company, but it increases the goodwill in the market and amongst the customers.
Data Strategy: Data strategy is a central, integrated concept that articulates how data will enable and inspire business strategy.
Pricing Optimisation: Price optimisation is the practice of using data from customers and the market to find the most effective price point for a product or service that maximizes value for customers and sales or profit for the company.
Sales Force Effectiveness: Sales force effectiveness is driven by the decisions, processes, systems and programmes that sales leaders are accountable. By managing sales force effectiveness drivers, companies can build high-quality sales teams that better meet customer needs, increase productivity and successful conversion, and consequently result in improved turnover and EBITDA margins.
Procurement & Managing Suppliers: Smart procurement practices are fundamental for companies across all industries to optimise operational efficiencies and improving EBITDA margin.
Product Portfolio Optimisation: Product portfolio optimisation helps managers assess their products’ current level of success - it provides a centralized view of an entire suite of products against the prevailing marketplace for those products. Effective product portfolio optimisation highlights future opportunities for improved resource allocation, greater returns, growth and profit, and reveals products that are generating a negative contribution.
Operational Efficiencies: Operational efficiency refers to a company’s ability to reduce waste in time, effort and materials as much as possible, while still producing a high-quality service or product. Financially, operational efficiency is the ratio between the input required to keep the company going and the output it provides. When improving operational efficiency, the output to input ratio improves. The greater the operational efficiency, the more profitable a company becomes as it can generate greater income or returns for the same or lower cost.
Cost to Serve: Cost to Serve focuses on aggregate analyses around a blend of cost drivers. The analysis exposes the variation in customer demands for different activities and has a different cost profile. Without understanding the cost to serve a customer, a company is unable to determine the value that customer is contributing to their business.
The value levers are a great way of prioritising what's important.
The levers that drive the biggest value result in an improved performance that leads to greater valuation.
If you are:
1. Getting your business ready for sale
Executing initiatives that drive value and can be in the run rate results will result in a higher sale price
2. Buying a business.
Your investment case is critical to drive the appropriate acquisition price. This will also drive what transformation program looks like once the business has been bought to ensure the business case is achieved/exceeded
3. Running your own business.
Driving value is what you do everyday but sometimes it's easy to miss the levers to pull to achieve the greatest success.
At any point of a business lifecycle it's imperative that driving value is something you focus on to drive consistent and stable earnings with a positive trend.
Article by Jo Hands, Co-Founder Whiteark
Looking for more support? Download our Private Equity Playbook for the ultimate guide to value creation.
Looking to create value in your organisation? Let us help.
Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business.
Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au
M&A Trends and Insights
The economic impact of COVID-19 has led to a material decline in M&A activity globally, including Australia. As a result, we have seen fewer transactions and according to Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters), worldwide M&A activity totaled US$1.2 trillion during H1 of 2020, a drop of 41% compared to a year ago and the slowest opening six-month period since 2013. M&A activity abroad appears to have rebounded to some degree since the end of June 2020, presumably as economies have started to reopen.
The economic impact of COVID-19 has led to a material decline in M&A activity globally including Australia. As a result, we have seen fewer transactions and according to Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters), worldwide M&A activity totaled US$1.2 trillion during H1 of 2020, a drop of 41% compared to a year ago and the slowest opening six-month period since 2013. M&A activity abroad appears to have rebounded to some degree since the end of June 2020, presumably as economies have started to reopen. The Financial Times reported that since the end of June, 8 deals each worth more than US$10 billion have been announced.
Australian Private Equity History
Compared to the US and UK private equity (PE) markets, the Australian PE market is relatively immature. The first venture capital fund was established in the mid-1980s by Bill Ferris, and the fund performed well but it was not until the Australian Government set up an Innovation Fund in the mid-1990s offering A$2 funding for every A$1 raised that the venture capital industry accelerated.
Between 2000 and 2010, deal sizes and fund sizes grew exponentially in Australia and many global private equity players such as KKR, Carlyle, TPG and Blackstone opened offices in Australia with a view to acquiring large businesses beyond the reach of the smaller newly formed local funds.
Australian Private Equity Landscape
Fundraising in Australia has become global with Australian institutions seeking global exposure and Australian PE managers having to raise funds abroad in competition with fund managers across the globe. Consequently, only the best performing funds have raised new and larger funds in Australia, while only a small number of Australian fund managers from the early 2000s are still active.
A decade ago, the vast majority of PE deals in Australia were by Australian managers investing Australian institutional money. By 2019, between 60-70 % of PE investment in Australia came from offshore funds with many adopting the “fly in fly out” model investing from their home base or from regional APAC offices in Hong Kong or Singapore. This trend for increased investment by offshore PE in Australia is set to continue for a number of reasons including:
Higher levels of local competition and high prices in their home markets of US and Europe, some growth capital funds, and buyout funds, have abroad for investments;
Australia has a stable political environment, first rate governance and rule of law, a strong economy and a reputation for technology and innovation;
Australia has reduced competition from local funds due to consolidation and the relative weakness of the Australian dollar to the US dollar, it is easy to see why Australian deal values have been attractive to US investors.
Australian M&A Market
In Australia, M&A activity for the first half was subdued. Announced deals in Australia and New Zealand dropped 51% in value terms with the largest public company transactions being:
Iberdrola’s bid for Infigen at $1.5 billion (topping an earlier bid by UAC Energy, a joint venture between AC Energy and UPC Renewables);
Uniti Group’s proposed merger with OptiComm, valued at $540m;
Shandong Gold Mining’s bid for Cardinal Resources, valued at $335m.
All other deals announced in that period had a lower value, though this excludes a number of significant transactions including:
Bain Capital’s acquisition of Virgin Australia (in administration), agreed in June, but not strictly a public company transaction, given the nature of the transaction;
TPG’s $15 billion merger with Vodafone which completed in July, as that was announced in 2018;
BGH’s $542m recommended bid for Village Roadshow as it was agreed in August.
“CONTENTS
> Introduction
> Australian PE History
> Australian Private Equity Landscape
> Australian M&A Market
> Recent Market Developments - Revised Foreign Investment Rules
> Impact of COVID on Asset Valuations - Digital and Technology assets
> Variable Consideration as part of Asset Valuation
> Renegotiation and Reneging on Agreed Transactions
Key insights from the 2H of 2020
> Deal makers widen assessment of value creation to non-traditional sources
> The impact of a hot IPO market on M&A
> Looking ahead: Resilience and innovation”
Need support with your M&A? Reach out to the Whiteark team.
We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous.
Fuelled by passion, we revel in working with Private Equity; the pace, targeted focus on business optimisation and limited timeframes spark unforeseen transformation opportunities, which we’re excited to deliver on. Our approach is rooted in data, ensuring the right decisions are made – based on accurate information. Hands-on, we get into the trenches with you, working directly with the management team to realise outcomes expected by shareholders. We offer a range of transformation services which can be tailored to suit standard private equity options; always accompanied by a laser focus on profit optimisation of the business.