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Any mechanical engineers here?
This is the most timid bowl I’ve seen
Additional Posts in M&A - Mergers and Acquisitions Professionals
What exactly does JPM DIB do?
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Depends on desired m&a exits from consulting:
- PE investment team: should focus on CDDs and market studies. That said, if you wish to enter you have to become familiar with LBO model and other processes that an associate is typically involved in.
- PE Ops team: should focus on ODD projects, merger integration and carve outs, stand-alone cost assessments, value creation, IMO, SMO, etc. But market studies could prob cut it as well. Depends.
- VC investment team: I’d say the skills you develop in CDDs and market studies are transferable and there’s less focus on the “model”, and more on the attractiveness of the “opportunity” (aka TAM/SAM/SOM, customer and competitor insights).
- Cord Dev (or biz dev): I think exposure to either pre-deal (CDD/VDD/market studies), and post-deal (integration, separation, value creation, synergy assessments) is great. That said, similar to PE ops, you have to spent time outside of work to get comfortable with modeling and scenario analysis. Less so LBO, but more so M&A models.
Hedge fund/Quant fund: while this is not M&A in nature, it is investment-related. No idea of how consulting can help you with security analysis. But maybe, idk.
Mentor
ODD and PMI aren't MECE. ODD gauges the operational risk of buying, what the cost of mitigating this risk could be, and SWAGs what cost synergies could look like. PMI executes the mitigation and synergies
The basic operational risk lenses are usually cyber security, IT, and labor. Depending on what industry and profile the target is, you might throw in customer support, supply chain, PLM, EHS (if legal can't cover)
For tech companies, I view the diligence for product tech as ODD as well. The deal team should be the ones figuring out where the value chain and GTM fit for the product is (sometimes you can slide that into a CDD), while product tech DD will look at tech stack, scalability, dev practices, security architecture, data architecture, deployment architecture. There could be overlap some here so not black and white
The output of all of this is hugely relevant for PMI. Therefore a PMI veteran would do a way better job at articulating an ODD output vs someone who hasn't done PMI before
Thanks all for the comments and guidance - much appreciated!
EY 1 - thanks in particular, very detailed and just what I’m after!
Many orgs have Strategy and Corporate Development intermingled with reporting up to the same person (e.g CFO). If you can get into the Strategy side, and there is active deal flow then it’s likely you will get exposure. If you’re a high performer it’s easier to switch from Strategy to CD or have a hybrid role.
What roles specifically in M&A?
Join a company thats going through an acquisition or better yet an organization thats constantly doing M&As like UHG, albertsons, etc etc Though you will have to decide if you want to go into corporate development or run an IT integration and transformation for the acquisition!
M&A space as consulting is drastically different from getting involved in a FTE role in any of these organizations. You can expect the unexpected and bake in this in your estimates for how long to stay at a certain place. I do feel like M&A has chosen me rather me having to choose. It takes some courage to live dangerously!
Coach
Go get a job in corporate development at an upper middle market company
Thanks BDO appreciate your response