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In our continuing effort to help co-create solutions for business’ future, we offer the following ideas, insights and perspectives in the latest edition of the Leading Edge Digital Magazine. These thought leadership pieces are ready to be accessed any time, anywhere at LeadingEdgeMag.com/PKFTexas.

If you have topics you would like us to cover, contact us. As always, we enjoy receiving comments and feedback from our clients and the friends of our firm.

Continue Reading Winter 2019 Leading Edge Magazine is Now Live

Russ: The is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Russ Capper, this week’s guest host, and I’m here with Kirsten Strieck, a shareholder and Director of Operations & Client Services at Joint Venture Strategic Advisors. Welcome to the Playbook, Kirsten.

Kirsten: Thank you, Russ.

Russ: You bet.  Tell us about Strategic Advisors.

Kirsten: We are a specialty joint venture consulting firm that provides any joint venture services to the energy industry, but also to other industries that have an agreement and partners. Continue Reading Working with Joint Venture Agreements

Jen:  This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.  I’m Jen Lemanski, this week’s guest host, and I’m here with Chris Hatten, one of our audit directors on our Transaction Advisory Services team.  He’s also a Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor.  Welcome back to the Playbook Chris.

Chris:  Appreciate it, Jen.

Jen:  Chris we’ve talked in a couple other videos about transaction advisory services, due diligence, there’s a lot of prep that goes into that; what does it mean to get a company market ready?

Chris:  Well I liken it to three main areas, one being the mental aspect, the administrative aspect, as well as the transactional aspect.  When I say mental a lot of times we have clients that are closely held businesses or still within the same family and for them to get to the point where they’re ready to sell the business there’s a lot of hurdles that they actually have to overcome.  I can’t relate to anything that they have to go through because as much as I like my business I haven’t been invested in it for 30+ years or sold it off to children or grandchildren at times.

And then from the administrative standpoint there’s a lot that goes into it and sometimes that’s an impediment to getting a deal done because you have to get your financial statement set up, you have to go and get all those old, historical records and start documenting processes and procedures that the company’s been doing for sometimes 20 or 30 years that they’ve never actually gone through and documented before.  And then from the transaction process, a lot of it is just the education.  There are multiple exit channels that they can go through whether it’s selling to private equity, a strategic buyer or sometimes it’s transacting within the family itself or to management.

Jen:  that sounds really interesting.  How long does a transaction usually take?  I’m sure there’s an ideal timeline for a transaction and I’m sure there’s a very hurried timeline; what’s kind of the average?

Chris:  Usually they enter some type of period of exclusivity so it’s within 60 days and then there’s usually some extensions that go in there, so ideally by the time they actually get the LOI executed it’s probably 60 to 90 days before it gets closed.

Jen:  And on the transaction side when should they start getting somebody like PKF Texas involved; a year, 2 years, 6 months?

Chris:  Obviously the more time we have the more we can do with them to transact at a higher value hopefully, so some would say 2 years because there’s a lot of levers that we can throw between now and then.  But even if it’s just 60 days in advance to help them get their books cleaned up and help get their records pulled together that will help.

Jen:  Perfect.  Well, that’s great, we’ll get you back to talk a little bit more about it.

Chris:  Definitely.

Jen:  Thanks.  To learn more about how we can assist you with potential transactions visit PKFTexas.com/transactionadvisoryservices.  This has been another Thought Leader production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook.  Tune in next week for another chapter.

Jen:  This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.  I’m Jen Lemanski, this week’s guest host, and I’m here with Chris Hatten and Martin Euson, two of our directors on our Transaction Advisory Services team, Martin is on the tax side, Chris is on the audit side; guys welcome to The Playbook.

Both:  Thank you for having us.

Jen:  So Transaction Advisory Services sounds interesting.  What is it and what are your roles on the team?

Martin:  Jen, Transaction Advisory Services is a PKF service offering or platform if you will, by which we advise and help our clients, whether those be individuals, businesses or private equity firms.  Helping them and advising them to make more informed decisions, better decisions, strategic decisions when it comes to managing their capital and executing their transactions.

Jen:  Okay, now Chris I know you have the Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor credential, how does that play in?

Chris:  Well I think that was originally designed to help bridge the gap between the buyers, the sellers, as well as the activity that we do.  Even though, for example, private equity companies speak in a numbers language they have different terminology than what accountants do; we speak gap, they speak finance.  And so we’re looking for a way to kind of bridge that gap a little bit to help facilitate the transactions.

Jen:  So from the audit side and then Martin on the tax side who would use these services?

Martin:  I would say anybody who is interested, whether you’re talking individuals or businesses, who would be interested in making an acquisition, selling a company.  There’s also the broader application of transaction advisory services when we’re talking in terms of restructuring a business, whether that means reducing the number of legal entities involved or whether that means embarking on initial public offering.

Jen:  Now would it be the owners, would it be the private equity guys?  Who would we reach out to to talk to about these types of things?

Chris:  It could be both because we can assist from the buy side or the sell side.  So it could be a business owner who is needing assistance getting ready for a transaction or it could be a private equity company, a strategic buyer who’s looking to make an acquisition and needs somebody to go ahead and do something similar to a due diligence or quality of earnings report.

Jen:  Perfect, sounds like we need to get you guys in front of some folks.

Chris:  We can do that.

Jen:  All right, we’ll get you back to talk a little bit more, thanks.  To learn more about how we can assist you with potential transactions visit PKFTexas.com/TransactionAdvisoryServices.  This has been another Thought Leader production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook.