Buy a business in Europe
About buying a company in Europe
Corporate Finance in Europe's flexible team can help you buy companies across Europe. Our experienced approach guarantees that you will work with a proven methodology. Corporate Finance has a foothold in various European countries, which gives us access to a large number of companies that suit your profile and enables you to pick the very best companies for possible acquisitions.
Predominantly, we work on buy and build strategies through which we help companies in buying several add-on acquisitions. Because of our broad experience we are positioned very well to help companies, private equity firms and other investors in acquiring companies.
Below we globally describe the different steps we go through when helping you in your acquisition strategy. If you require more detailed information or have specific questions, feel free to call us or let us know by mail.
Engagement letter and search profile
Firstly, we equip ourselves with your company's vision and philosophy. We will try to understand your strategy to the last detail. Together we will draw up a detailed profile of the companies you plan to acquire and the synergies or objectives you are trying to achieve. We will start directly, which gives you a good understanding of our capabilities later on, during the assignment. Once we have discussed your plans, we will present you a detailed proposal and sign the engagement letter.
The search assignment
In this phase we will start analyzing which existing companies in the marketplace comply with your search profile. We use our European-wide subscribed databases, our network and other available resources. We grade targets based upon the criteria specified in the search profile. The outcome of this phase is a longlist with qualified candidates for acquisition purposes.
Contacting the targets
After your approval of the longlist of targets, we will contact them. We will mainly sell them the advantages of being part of your organization and picture very clearly what is in it for them and how they can benefit from a takeover. During the talks and meetings we will thoroughly test the capabilities of their management and owners. The result will be a 'shortlist of targets', whom we will visit or invite to your company for further consideration.
The valuation and negotiation process
We will value serious targets on the basis of agreed methods. At the same time we will check for a realistic feeling of the expected value by business owners, in order to create a solid ground for continuing the negotiations. If a majority stake is acquired, we mainly focus on the value added of your company, so that the remaining business owner(s) share can be very interesting for them, as a substantial increase may be expected after your company has finished the acquisition.
The Letter of Intent (LOI) or Term Sheet
Once we are certain we have found the most suitable target with the best management team, we negotiate an LOI with the candidate to be acquired. In case of a smaller project, we put together a one-page term sheet so both parties have a common understanding of the main framework for the contract.
Due diligence
We can assist in the due diligence of the company to be acquired. However, this can also be done by employees of your firm or local accountants/due diligence experts. Due diligence is executed on financial, operational, legal and other business areas. In this phase, we assure that all items are consistent with the financial statements in which they are described.
The contract
In the final phase the contract will be drawn up by an external legal party. Corporate Finance in Europe can manage this process if desired. Signing the contract at the notary is the first step in merging two companies that are more valuable together.
European Corporate Finance
We provide our services in all European countries. On account of our peoples native skills the following countries have our special attention: the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Switzerland. Corporate Finance in Europe (CFIE) is highly qualified to help out on M&A advice, consultancy, valuation, taxes and legal matters. See more details on our m&a advisors
Contact us for a free of charge brainstorm and feedback on your plans.
