CREATE MORE VALUE BEFORE YOU SELL
NMC’s team has led or co-led diligence and valuation work on more than $250BN of bids, acquisitions and mergers.
We know how buyers work. They find the problems sellers would prefer to keep hidden and use them to negotiate a lower price. Then they capture the quick upsides after closing for themselves.
We bring that expertise to sellers. Fix the deal killers before a buyer finds them. Capture the upside yourself, before you sell.
Examples:
Global luxury fragrance brand
An orphaned, declining brand in a PE portfolio needed an exit. We identified $6.5M of profit and efficiency improvements, plus simple brand extensions that lifted growth to 15% a year. Sold to a strategic buyer within two years at an enhanced multiple.
National specialty retailer
The category leader had maxed out its credit lines, and growth had stalled. We leveraged an under-valued asset: store traffic. A new dealer program let select partners pay to have a store built on their own lot and capture a 40–60% lift in their revenue. Within three years it added $180M of revenue and $14.4M of annual EBITDA. Profits and enterprise value doubled with no new capital.
Mining equipment rental and services business
To support an IPO, we developed the business case for expanding mining equipment rentals into North America. The work supported a much larger addressable market and a higher growth case, leading to a successful IPO.
TAILORED EXITS: WHEN AN AUCTION IS THE WRONG ANSWER
Some businesses are too complex, sensitive or dependent on key people for a conventional sale. NMC structures management buyouts and buy-ins that deliver liquidity, preserve essential capabilities and give management meaningful ownership. We develop the valuation, transaction structure and management incentives, assemble the financing and manage the process.
Typical situations
Non-core subsidiaries of larger companies/Joint Ventures: Too risky or too revealing to auction. A management buyout delivers liquidity, limited disclosure and less disruptive transition.
Private owners who want to stay invested: A sale to private equity or a strategic buyer often replaces the team that built the company. Many owners may achieve an attractive financial outcome through a structured sale to management and stay partially invested to share in the upside.
Skill- and expert-intensive businesses: Businesses in which the core assets walk out of the door every night, such as medical and professional services, rarely make good LBO candidates. Larger ones can succeed, but mid-sized and smaller LBOs and roll-ups often struggle and end up lender-owned. Exits from these situations are often best handled as a management buyout or management buy-in.
NMC works with owners and lenders to develop the strategy, valuation, transaction structure and management incentives, and arrange the required debt and equity financing.
Examples
Major film studio’s licensing division
A breakeven business being prepared for sale. We found and executed $7M of savings and detailed a further $18M from nearshoring operations. Our work ensured the business was sold through a management buy-in at a very high multiple, driven by both.
European media group
Worked with one member of the owning media consortium to buy out the others. Replaced departing executives, cut the workforce by 70% with management, and relaunched the channel. We also built a licensing and scheduling software system later sold to the distribution divisions of five of the largest motion picture studios.
[Discuss a sale]