IndustryPrincipal Investors and Private Equity

Today, it has become increasingly challenging to identify and acquire compelling targets with justifiable valuations. Besides the significant dry powder available through global buyout funds, the heightened investment appetite driven by corporate M&A growth agendas further intensifies competition for the most attractive assets. Industry experts from our vertically structured Private Equity team work with clients to develop the right investment thesis to enhance the quality of deal flow.

Leveraging our longstanding industry expertise and extensive origination network, we provide robust, analytically informed insights into the industry ecosystem. 

Our structured market screenings allow for the exploration of industry-specific characteristics and developments, as well as the identification of attractive segments that are worthwhile investing in or qualify for our client's buy-and-build strategy.

Through effective target identification, we prioritize valuable prospects based on a predefined value logic to generate a comprehensive long list, which is further refined into an actionable shortlist. This process enables us to develop a sharp point of view for prioritized targets and devise a plan on how to approach them.

Leveraging our extensive expertise, we offer comprehensive transaction advisory support ranging from buy-side and sell-side commercial due diligence to M&A, down to financing and debt advisory with our dedicated teams of more than 50 professionals in the DACH region and Italy. We have earned continuous top 3 rankings in relevant league tables over the last five years by offering high-quality commercial due diligence services with unmatched industry depth.

To provide an actionable post-acquisition agenda, it takes a compelling 'equity story,' a clear strategic roadmap, well-defined levers, and prompt execution. We collaborate with our clients to define the best ways to create sustainable value from the asset and achieve timely results and performance improvements, meant to be data-room-ready and fully linked to the P&L, starting from full potential planning across all stages of a full potential program.

Our services cover all major areas of value creation related to strategy, top-line and bottom-line improvement, or financial structuring to maximize long-term profitability and free cash flows. As part of the commercial due diligence, we identify value creation levers, as well as first quick wins, to ensure the prompt execution of actions post-acquisition.

We specify measurable initiatives, quantify value creation potentials, and define responsibilities along a clear roadmap. We provide end-to-end support from strategy definition to execution, and the close interaction between our value creation and dedicated commercial due diligence teams ensures integrated full-service coverage. This provides the requisite expertise throughout all investment phases with the clear and measurable goal of maximizing shareholder value.

We believe that a stringent exit strategy leads to exceptional returns and prevents price misalignments – therefore, investor anticipation, rigorous execution, and comprehensive definition of a forward-looking equity story are indispensable.

During the exit process, we assist our clients with commercial vendor due diligence or commercial factbooks and support the realization of returns by defining the ideal exit strategy and equity story for a pre-defined universe of buyers. We analyze industry trends, assess business cycles, as well as current equity market conditions, and execute an exit sprint program to set the company on the right growth trajectory.

To highlight the firm's profitable core, refine and bolster the management's business plan, and uncover tangible growth opportunities, we work closely with owners and management.

We are the ideal partner in the exit process for clients because we deliver a clear yet comprehensive basis of communication for bidders, as well as flexible support by providing answers to potential questions from buyers or lenders.