Once obligatory rituals of the investment process, the “gut check” in-person meeting between a buyer and the operator-sellers are now being replaced...
Once obligatory rituals of the investment process, the “gut check” in-person meeting between a buyer and the operator-sellers are now being replaced with video conference interviews and virtual facility tours (and the detailed physical inspection of the workplace and core scientific R&D facilities). In this paper, we share what we expect will become increasingly accepted practices in deal-making in the social distancing era.
The global shutdown started in mid-March, with mandatory sanitary isolation affecting a quarter of the world’s population.
In the busy Trans-Atlantic M&A corridor, 100% of individuals involved in deal-making have been in confinement.
Yet, in both our Healthcare and Tech/Marcoms practices, we have maintained a vigorous cadence in our sales processes. We have been charting the way towards the closing of transactions for our clients and their counterparties in an all virtual, digital, cloud-based, video-conference laden environment.
What’s even more telling is that individuals critical to the post-closing success of the transaction will never have met in person (F2F) in our people-intensive transactions; and, site visits of laboratory/clinical assets absolutely essential to the investment rationale will have been performed through virtual walks with the seller representative streaming live video feeds to the buyer. After which, signatures on purchase agreements will be exchanged, funds will be wired and ownership of assets will pass, with not one single F2F interaction or in-person inspection during the M&A process.
PIERRE-GEORGES ROY Partner
Contact Pierre-Georges pgroy@resultsig.com + 1 646 747 6505
JAMES KESNER Director
Contact James jkesner@resultsig.com +44 20 7514 8231
KUNAL KADIWAR Director
Contact Kunal kkadiwar@resultsig.com +44 20 7514 8248