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Notes – Best Practices in Deal Flow Origination

These notes are from an article entitled “Where Are The Deals?” by David Teten. He also has resources on adding value to portfolio companies which are worth browsing. For notes on a related topic, check out the “Notes – Stanford Graduate School of Business Search Fund Primer” post.

  • the median investor in private companies had to review 80 companies in order to close one transaction
  • investments sourced through personal and professional networks have been shown to yield better results
  • in order to train your relationships, it is important that you provide them with simple, clear investing criteria, not lengthy checklists; provide them a narrowly defined niche of interest (“Retail brands with $50M in annual revenues”)
  • on average it can take 1-2 years between the first meeting with a target CEO sourced through a network and the close of the deal
  • market mapping, identifying key macro and micro drivers of an industry and creating a database of all key companies; identify those with greatest growth potential or competitive white space
  • specialization enhances deal origination through deeper knowledge base, ability to add value through enhanced network and likelihood of being top of mind to key deal sources
  •  monitor target sector for cyclical opportunities and structure shifts; M&A creates orphan divisions and downturns cause strategy refocuses; 30-46% of PE returns over last 30 years driven by EBIT arbitrage (market timing)
  • other valuable sources of deal flow:
    • regional surveys
    • “fastest growing company” lists
    • trade association membership lists
    • commercial vendors
      • Amadeus
      • Capital IQ
      • Dun & Bradstreet
      • Hoover’s
      • InfoUSA
      • Lexis-Nexis
      • Thomson-Reuters
      • OneSource
  • set up alerts in a blog reader based on key words important to your target or industry focus
  • “A large portion of my deal flow comes from people I have rejected in the past.” be kind to everyone, even those you don’t do a deal with
  • consider having a dedicated, SEO-optimized website and blog for your acquisition fund/team that explains what you’re looking for, why, what you bring to the table, etc.; many VCs and most PE investors are not using basic internet marketing techniques (competitive advantage opportunity)
  • Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures post detailed analyses of their target investment sectors; blogging and posting of internal analyses is the “VC freemium model”
  • PE investing is a relationship business and the most important relationships are with LPs, entrepreneurs, executives and intermediaries which are relatively few in number
  • blogging is the best tool for VC investing according to one experienced observer; helps investor gain information, credibility and relationships through improved visibility
  • look for access to secondary interests through directly approaching funds (particularly distressed), markets for secondary interests (SecondMarket, NYPPEX, PORTAL Alliance) and approaching ibanks specializing in secondary interests (Cogent Partners, Probitas, Triago, UBS)
  • service providers such as accountants, lawyers, etc., are typically not good sources of deal flow because they require too much education and often have a fiduciary responsibility to their client; on the other hand, connecting with service providers in a specialized domain that is being targeted can be a good source of insight
  • trawl the Q&A portion of sites such as LinkedIn to identify domain experts for further outreach
  • measure your deal origination efforts with activity measures, deal flow by source, pipeline analytics and industry benchmarking measures
  • many professional services firms do not use a global CRM system such as Salesforce.com, Act, Saleslogix, Microsoft Access or Angelsoft (angel/VC network)
  • Key data sources for CRM systems include employee networks (ContactNet Enterprise Relationship Management), business cards (Cardscan, IRIS, Neat, Presto), data from email and files (eGrabber, Gwabbit, Grab-Text, Broadlook), the “cloud” (LinkedIn, Spoke, Plaxo) and direct from target companies’ websites, media, etc.

Key attributes of top originators in order of importance

  1. persistence (every no gets you closer to a yes)
  2. personality (people do business with those they like)
  3. business and financial judgment
  4. adequate financial sophistication
  5. seniority and appropriate title (decision-maker)
  6. internal authority to get transaction executed
  7. creativity

Important deal signals when identifying targets (utilize commercial databases, social media, data mining and targeted phone research to uncover)

  • Status of the major equity owner
    • PE funds motivated to sell due to fully invested, raising next fund or current fund has aged beyond 5-7 years
    • Large corp raising cash by selling subsidiaries
    • Time limited tax incentives
    • Family in midst of succession battle
    • Death, disease and divorce (“three Ds”)
  • Status of CEO
    • retirement
    • age
    • acknowledgement of limited competence
  • Corporate performance
    • growth too rapid for self-funding
    • underperforming/distressed
  • Industry/economic trends
    • industry consolidation
      • competitive pressure
      • seeing competitors liquidating equity for large gains
    • competitors raising capital; pressure to maintain parity
    • growth sector

Top considerations for deal intermediaries in directing deal flow

  1. Possibility of future revenue
  2. Integrity
  3. Timely responses
  4. “Fair” treatment of sellers
  5. Experience with the industry or owner type
  6. High certainty to close
  7. Friendship
  8. Feedback and referrals
  9. Maintaining a single point of contact

Most valued aspects of acquiring companies by the acquired

  1. Added operational value
  2. No extra costs
  3. Fair treatment of employees post-transaction
  4. Brand
  5. Long holding periods (no buy-to-flip)

Leading databases of institutional investors (use principles of SEO to optimize your profile here)

  • Galante’s
  • Grey House
  • VentureXpert
  • PE funds
    • Eurekahedge
    • Pitchbook
  • VC funds
    • Angelsoft
    • CrunchBase
    • PWC MoneyTree
    • TheFunded
    • VentureDeal

Market Mapping steps

  1. choose industries and geographies of initial interest
  2. define your proprietary point of view
  3. translate into investment theme (industries/geographies of interest)
  4. list major players in target industry/geography
  5. improve market map with feedback from industry contacts and investment targets
  6. determine which activities offer the highest return and outsource the rest
  7. identify areas of future growth
  8. asses fit with your overall strategy
  9. regularly update the market map with additional feedback and lessons

10 Simple Steps to Improve Your Origination

  1. Analyze your network
  2. Use market mapping to develop deep, proprietary insights about your target
  3. Monitor target ecosystem for cyclical/structural opportunities
  4. Align internal interests
  5. Divide and conquer
  6. Centralize data and become an information sponge
  7. Develop a network with limited overlap
  8. Take control of your virtual presence (marketing)
  9. Join the in-person and virtual communities of your target market
  10. Take a leadership role; find a way to stand out and attract others to you
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