Growth strategies, M&A, and alliances are among the core toolset for managers to drive up value. High performance, however, requires a dual-focus on the execution of each deal as well as a keen ability to manage the enterprise portfolio.

SECOR's Corporate Finance Practice offers strategic, transactional and financial advisory services, with an objective and integrated approach focused on long term client value.

We combine strategic thinking with a robust set of analytical methodologies for investment screening, valuation, asset allocation and risk assessment. Our experience spans a range of finance-oriented engagements for new ventures, investments and deal valuation, operational expansions, and restructurings.

We describe further in more detail our M&A and PMI practices. Here are some of our other venues of action in this domain:
 

Principal Investment
 

When surveying investment opportunities, a consistent and comprehensive valuation approach is crucial. This implies more than just sound cash flow analysis; valuation must incorporate strategic planning and policy that makes the best use of capital in the face of a complex and uncertain business environment.
 

Integrated Risk Managment
 

As new staffing levels and layers of authority are introduced in an organization, managers need to adopt more robust and comprehensive risk management approaches, including formalized corporate policies as well as stringent control functions. The challenge here is to implement such approaches without threatening organizational and capital efficiency or suppress innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour.
 

Alliances and Joint Ventures
 

Cooperative strategy is among the most useful tools in the business toolkit for creating access to scarce resources and reducing risk. It is also one of the most challenging to use, often resulting in complex structures and incentive problems that require close management. SECOR offers a range of services to assist clients in navigating partnership opportunities.

Merger and Acquisitions
 

SECOR research suggests that the key success factors in an M&A operation are sound strategic planning, rigorous target selection, cultural fit and post-deal integration. Common causes of failure include weak strategic rationale; incorrect valuation assumptions leading to over-payment; selection of the wrong partner; and underestimated complexity in operational and cultural integration.
 

The main strengths of our M&A advisory service are:

• Taking an End-to-End Perspective
  • Employing an agile yet disciplined method from opportunity generation and evaluation to execution and implementation.
• Building the Right Team
  • Complementing the client team with specialized resources as needed: pre-deal planning and analysis; risk assessment; financing strategy; bid strategy; deal structuring and negotiation; due diligence; and post-deal integration planning.
• Maintaining Strategic Focus
  • Ensuring the deal process does not lose sight of the overarching strategic agenda of the business enterprise.
• Extracting Maximum Value
  • Avoiding the pitfalls of deal management only mitigates value destruction - realizing the strategy requires adept post-deal integration

Post Merger Integration
 

Our PMI service reduces the risk of failure. It provides advice and support for the corporate-wide activities required to achieve synergies and merge cultures and practices seamlessly.
 

Our experience shows that SECOR’s main contribution in that field come from:

• Support
  • We support the new company leadership team with the strategic decisions required, dealing with cultural and change issues, and planning the execution of all integration projects. This is accomplished by a small team of experienced consultants in the role of strategic advisor and program manager.
• Post-merger review
  • In addition, we use our merger experience to help companies conduct a post-merger review to assess the extent to which all benefits were achieved and to begin to determine the next step in their growth strategy.
• Adapting to unique situations
  • We recognize that all mergers are different. Timing and certainty of deal closure, level of due diligence, relative size of the companies, degree of overlap, and cultural differences are a few of the variables that affect the specific timing and priorities in PMI design.
• Strong support team
  • We provide a small experienced team to provide advice on strategic decisions. In addition, we typically provide a small project office structure to help launch planning teams and coordinate their activities.
• Keeping the client in command
  • We do not try to run the integration process on behalf of our clients. We work closely with our client teams but expect them to take ownership of the plans being developed since they will have ultimate responsibility.