Transactional Advice

Acquisitions and Acquisition Searches

Equally as broad as the motives for a sale are the factors that lead organizations to explore an acquisition:

• The organization has invested heavily in its brand, marketing and distribution and its core investment products. It wishes to add specialist products seeking a larger “share of wallet” among its clients, or to selectively enter new markets (defined by geography or client base).
• A foreign group wishes to establish a foothold in the United States in order both to gain access to US investment products for its overseas clients (or its own portfolios) or to be able to offer its international products to the US marketplace.
• Having established a market-leading reputation in sponsoring and managing credit products, this client seeks to add scale and professional talent by acquiring smaller “undersized” managers or business units in its market segment.
• The private wealth management division of a large bank has committed itself to open architecture, and wishes to rapidly establish its capabilities and credibility in the ultra-high net worth segment by acquiring multi-family offices in attractive urban markets.

Cambridge can assist these organizations in defining and refining the mission, reviewing and screening the universe of potentially compatible acquisition targets with (many of whom we will have an existing relationship), and articulating the benefits of an association with our client as we begin to meet with targets. Often, our clients have targeted, or are already in conversation with, a specific firm, and wish to engage an experienced specialist advisor to help take that initial dialogue to a successful conclusion.

The value we bring includes . . .

• Pre-existing relationships with hundreds of independent investment managers and other financial services firms, several of which may become prospective acquisition targets for any given assignment.
• Ability to take our client to firms that are not “on the market”, but open to a dialogue.
• Intimate familiarity with the priorities and sensitivities of the owners of these businesses.
• Knowledge, gained through experience, of the dialogue, due diligence and transaction structure needed to gauge the prospects for, and best encourage, post-transaction success.
• Approaches to these successful independent firms are made at a very senior level by our principals.