Merger & Acquisition Support

Our clients are regularly buying or selling businesses, going through a merger, defending themselves from a hostile takeover or entering into a joint venture. Whatever the nature of your transaction, successful completion will depend on the ability to overcome obstacles and answer questions that may not have been considered previously.

We understand our clients strengths better than anyone else, having worked closely with most of them for many years and built up a thorough knowledge of their industry and their markets. Therefore, when it comes to corporate-level transactions, we are ideally placed to assist. At American Appraisal, transactions are part of our daily life. We help finalise and complete transactions every week, all around the world.

Clients determine the appropriate level of our involvement based on the specifics of their transaction and in-house resources. We can assist you with:

• Providing full buy side or sell side due diligence addressing financial, commercial and market due diligence.
• Ensuring that the critical value drivers are identified to enable action plans to be developed to deliver transaction value most efficiently.
• Providing an independent valuation of a company in accordance with the Articles of Association to determine the price paid to an investor that wishes to sell their shareholding.
• Advising buyers on the inherent value within target businesses and potential synergies that may be gained through an acquisition.
• Assisting sellers to ensure that consideration received recognises the full value of the business or asset.
• Preparing fairness opinions and contribution in kind reports which provide the value of shares offered to the seller as part of the purchase consideration.
• Where shares will be issued to management as part of the transaction, we provide valuation advice to assist in scheme design and structuring (See also Income Tax and Share Based Payments).
• Providing valuation opinions so that owners can assess the financial consequences of strategic options.
• Assisting in determining the likely realisable value of underutilised intangible assets.
• Negotiation support
• Verification of historical fixed asset listings or creation of them
• Identification of redundant assets and research of liquidation options
• Allocation of the purchase price to support financial and tax reporting
• Setting up new transfer pricing arrangements post deal
• Assessing appropriateness of property taxes and/or adequacy of insurance

Our work

Understanding our clients intimately allows us to highlight potential deals that are more likely to be successful at enhancing shareholder value. American Appraisal’s experience of performing thousands of business valuations annually enable us to assess acquisitions that address the value drivers required for any business. American Appraisal consultants, both in the UK and across our network of global offices, have skills across all industries and extensive experience of business valuation and applying business valuation and share valuation techniques including.

We have played a key role in both complex and more straightforward transactions, including the following recent work:

• Technical due diligence and valuation for the acquisition of a tube manufacturer by a US Private Equity fund
• Technical due diligence for a midmarket chemical firm
• Pre-transaction due diligence and valuation for a multi-national insurance company looking to purchase a European business
• Pre-transaction advice for a software security company prior to its sale to a global IT group
• Buy side due diligence to a sovereign wealth fund looking to invest in real estate
• Technical due diligence for a midmarket chemical firm
• Post deal transfer pricing assessment for a commodity manufacturer
• Consulting advice for a Leisure group looking to raise funds
• Investment mandate for an Indian start up business looking to raise funds
• Pre-transaction advice for a gold mining company looking to raise funds
• Due diligence pre deal for a UK hedge fund investing in India
• Transaction advice to an owner managed business selling to a global car manufacturer

American Appraisal consultants are active in:

• the ICAEWs Corporate Finance Faculty
• the EVCA and BVCA

Transactions present unique challenges. We invite you to take advantage of American Appraisal’s experience. We have been there before. We are happy to talk through your requirements and see where we might be able to help. Please feel free to contact one of our experts.