ACQUISITION TARGET
A Professional Services Firm Prepares to Purchase a Competitor’s Key Assets Out of Bankruptcy
Challenge
During the 2008 economic downturn, one of the businesses that failed was a well-known professional consulting entity with several strategic practices – including a roster of high-value client accounts and client-facing teams led by top-tier talent. A bankruptcy court was overseeing the sale of these assets, in various bundles, to satisfy the entity’s financial obligations. At the time, I was the only external member and communications expert among a small group of strategic M&A experts and analysts considering submitting a bid. “We’ve got a big lift here,” the partner in charge of Strategy explained. “First, the U.S. and global boards need to buy-in to this – and more than a few members are skeptical. Then we need to immediately begin communicating our strategy internally to all the firm’s partners and, at the right time, to our existing practice, whose numbers will triple, and other stakeholders who will be most impacted by this. And, of course, we need a full roster of communications for Day One, including the employees of the practice we hope to hire as well as the media and the analyst community.”
Action
The Strategy Partner was colorful, dynamic and highly intelligent. Meticulous about the deal’s rationale and passionate about its bottom-line value for the firm, he also favored a communication style that was bold, risk-taking and direct. Together, he and I wrote a short “white paper” for the board that won accolades from the firm’s global CEO as an “outstanding piece of business writing” and helped win approval for the deal based on specific assumptions, projections and requirements. Over the next four months, I built out multiple iterations of this story as we cascaded the messaging across internal audience groups (e.g., the U.S. and global boards, the U.S. and international leadership teams, U.S. partners and managing directors and territory leaders) and across multiple deal stages (e.g. Order for Sale Day, Pre-Close Period, Close Day and Day One).
Impact
The bankruptcy court awarded the sale of these assets to a competitor, whose bid exceeded ours. From a professional standpoint, however, this was very important project for me because it extended my “personal brand” to several dozen additional U.S. and international leaders. For the next year, until I left to join Hillard Heintze, I led the communications supporting additional acquisitions and integrations.