BUY-SIDE M&A
Targets, identified and approached long before they reach the market.
We work with funds, sponsors, family offices and corporate acquirers to originate acquisitions directly, approaching owners who have not decided to sell and bringing forward only the conversations worth taking.
Start a conversationTHE PROBLEM
Intermediated deal flow arrives priced.
By the time a business appears in a banked process, the seller has been prepared, the field has been widened, and the outcome is decided on price against parties who arrived at the same time.
The alternative is a proprietary approach, and most acquirers know that. The reason it does not happen is capacity. Reaching owners who have not decided to sell requires sustained volume against a defined thesis, week after week, and it does not fit around a deal team already running live transactions.
THE WORK
We run the top of the funnel.
The thesis is yours. We work against it rather than around it, and every stage is designed to protect your time until there is something worth spending it on.
1. Thesis translation
Your criteria become searchable parameters. Sector, size, geography, ownership structure, capability profile, and the specific characteristics that distinguish a fit from a near miss.
2. Universe construction
The full set of companies matching those parameters, including private businesses that have never appeared in a banked process or on a broker's list. Approved by you before anyone is contacted.
3. Direct approach
Owners are approached individually with a brief that explains why the conversation is relevant to them rather than to us. No process, no book, no deadline.
4. Screening and qualification
Interested owners are screened on the criteria that matter before anything reaches you. Where the fit holds, we make a qualified introduction and step back so the relationship is yours from the first conversation.
WHO WE WORK WITH
Acquirers with a thesis and no capacity to work it.
Private equity funds
A stated sector focus and a pipeline arriving almost entirely through bankers. Proprietary flow is the difference between competing on price and competing on relationship.
Independent sponsors
Deal-by-deal capital and no fund behind the name. Finding businesses before they reach a process is often the only way to win against committed money.
Family offices
Buying directly, holding indefinitely, and unwilling to pay the premium a competitive process attaches to an asset.
Corporate acquirers
A roll-up or expansion plan that requires a steady flow of conversations, run by a development team of two or three people who are already executing live deals.
An owner who has not run a process has not been coached, has not set an expectation, and has not lined up alternatives. The negotiation is about whether a deal makes sense rather than about clearing a bar someone else set.
It also compounds. An owner who says no this year has met you, and the second conversation starts from a different place than the first.
ENGAGEMENT
Structured to run continuously, not episodically.
Origination is not a project with an end date. We work on a retained basis so the volume is sustained and the thesis can be refined as the market answers back.
Terms are set against the thesis, the geography and the pace required.
VISIBILITY
You see the work while it happens.
Target lists come to you for approval before anyone is contacted, so the universe being worked is visible from the outset rather than at the point of introduction. Nothing goes out in your name that you have not seen.
Activity is reported on a fixed cadence. Who was approached, who responded, what they said, and which conversations were screened out and why.
The declines matter as much as the interest. An owner not selling this year usually explains what would change that, and those answers sharpen the thesis for the next cycle.