The DealStar Program, based on a deep understanding of the competitive M&A market, was designed to provide the necessary in-house resources for Valufinder to quickly launch a comprehensive acquisition search in order for proactive Buyers to successfully reach all the targets that meet their criteria in order to find the best deal(s) to purchase.
Middle Market Buy-side Acquisition Experts
Your success is our mission. We provide trusted guidance to create value and drive growth through strategic acquisitions.
Buyer Solution
Key Highlights of a DealStar Search Include:
Value-Added Research
Valufinder’s in-house research team has extensive experience creating high-value target lists tailored to a Buyer’s criteria in every major industry. Most research associates have over 10 years of tenure with the team. Their methodology has evolved with technology, combining traditional business databases and old-school methods with modern Artificial Intelligence technology and the latest database search engines, to ensure a robust prospecting list.
Customized Marketing Materials
Valufinder’s marketing experts create informative, personalized, and compelling mailing materials that emphasize a Buyer’s potential strategic fit with each target. Marketing then collaborates with our seasoned M&A professionals to create engaging scripts for initial target conversations and Q&A.
Highest Conversion Rate - DealStar’s “Learn More” Methodology
We use a consultative and patient approach that allows an Owner to “learn more”, at their own pace, about the potential benefits of a transaction with our Buyer. Our roster of active and successful PE firms reports that our process has the highest rate of converting indifferent or skeptical Owners into interested prospects. This approach significantly increases the total number of potential targets for a Buyer to evaluate.
Exclusive First Look and Attractive Pricing
Our process typically allows our client an exclusive first look, that is a non-competitive one-on-one conversation with an Owner. Once chemistry is established, a proprietary deal can often be transacted, bypassing a competitive auction process and its significantly higher multiples and prices.
Facilitation and Closing
From the first conversation Valufinder remains connected with a target, helping them evolve into a possible seller willing to be introduced, in a no-obligation call, to our Buyer. After the introduction, and with the Buyer’s knowledge, Valufinder continues to proactively but discreetly maintain dialogue to facilitate communication, exchange information, address Owner concerns, and provide solutions to any issues that arise. We maintain an open channel of communication until the deal is completed. Buyer Services
MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
M&A is a numbers game; the more companies you evaluate, the higher the probability of finding a suitable acquisition. Based on our track record, we are so confident in the success of our target outreach that we offer a Money-Back Guarantee that we will speak to a minimum of 85% of the Owners, Presidents, CFOs, or their representatives on your Approved Target List regarding your strategic interest in acquiring them. We are so confident in the quality of our program and our commitment to delivering exceptional results — that we offer a performance-based MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
Key Points of the DealStar Process
Systematic and Owner-Friendly: The DealStar process ensures that all Buyer-approved prospects are consistently and professionally contacted on a timely, meaningful, and relevant basis. While the Buyer may be working on other matters, by utilizing DealStar, no deal opportunity falls through the cracks, regardless of workload, timeliness, or distractions.
Insight and Opportunity:
Valufinder's extensive knowledge and experience provide unique insights that transform Owners' challenges into opportunities for a Buyer to have successful closings.
Team Collaboration:
Prospects are assigned to an experienced team of M&A professionals to expedite outreach, initiate contact and ensure thorough coverage and reliable backup throughout the deal process.
Scheduled Communications:
Prospects initially receive a custom-tailored mail package, followed by a persistent but polite phone/email outreach campaign that can potentially last many months, with dozens of calls and emails, before the first contact is made.
Targeted Initial Conversations:
Our first interactions with prospects are tailored to an Owner's objectives, offering specific information about our clients, answering questions, and generating ideas relevant to the Owner. Of course, we are also qualifying the Target's fit with our Client's criteria as soon as possible.
Relationship Building:
Our subsequent conversations aim to develop a genuine rapport with the Owner, based on their personal interests, goals, timelines, and positioning our client as the optimal solution to achieve their objectives. We ensure that these interactions are free from pressure.
CRM Updates:
Constant updating of each prospect's information within our CRM ensures accuracy and comprehensiveness of data.
Real-Time Updates for Buyers:
The Buyer is promptly informed about significant developments concerning a specific prospect through phone or email, allowing for timely responses.
Bi-Weekly Reporting:
The Buyer and their team receive a bi-weekly CRM-generated report via email, detailing updates on the entire search and progress of every specific prospect. A subsequent conference call is scheduled with the Buyer to review the report, answer questions, and plan next steps and by whom, ensuring no opportunity is misplaced or forgotten.
DealStar’s Flexibility
The DealStar process has versatile application options for Buyers:
New Platform Identification:
Locate new platforms, potentially followed by subsequent add-ons.
Add-On Acquisitions:
Identify add-on acquisitions for existing platform companies.
One-Off Deal Opportunities
Not every buyer acquires all the opportunities we identify for them. Some align better with their criteria than others. However, the deals they pass on might be a great fit for you, and if we're working together, we'd be happy to share the "passed" deals with you.
Sector-Based Searches
Conduct simultaneous or sequential searches for companies in closely related industry sectors.
Geographic and Size Variability:
Search for companies across different prioritized geographies and of varying sizes.
Strategic Relationship:
Engage with Owners not looking to sell but who are open to considering strategic partnerships.
Recapitalizations and Minority Investments:
Locate opportunities for recapitalizations and minority investments.
Augmentation of Existing Efforts:
Supplement a Buyer’s current efforts to reach beyond the limited scope of investment bankers and their own normal contacts.
Adjustable Deal Flow Management:
The DealStar Process efficiently fills a Buyer's pipeline with well-matched prospects and offers flexibility to be paused or accelerated as needed to accommodate workload and priorities, ensuring a steady flow of opportunities.
Evolving Acquisition Criteria:
Adapt and expand the initial acquisition criteria to include additional segments and/or criteria as the Buyer’s understanding of their needs and market opportunities evolves.
Ask your Valufinder representative for an explanation of the above components and how they work together.
Important Buyer Benefits of a DealStar Process
Enhances your company’s inquiries with a polished and credible approach.
- Marketing materials and conversations are professionally crafted, rehearsed, informative, and Owner friendly, with scheduled follow-ups.
- Valufinder boasts over 350 years of combined experience and has been a leading Buy-Side Acquisition Advisory Firm for over 45 years.
You describe, we find, you buy. Simple and straightforward.
- Optimizes the performance of your personnel, allowing them to focus on closing real deals and monitoring investments, rather than chasing unproductive leads.
- Facilitates exclusive introductions with Owners who meet a Buyer’s criteria and are interested in selling.
- Enhances your company’s ROI and IRR by speeding up the acquisition process and capital deployment, facilitating growth into larger funds.
- Provides potential insights into future ownership changes of target companies, valuable for strategic acquisition planning.
- Real-time feedback and market intelligence directly from Owners in your target market.
Accelerates the search and screening process using your specific criteria.
- Divides your company’s Approved Prospect List among our professionals for rapid outreach and identification of viable candidates, enlarging the current pool from which you can select your next acquisition.
- Allows existing platforms to quickly speak with and engage more realistically and extensively with their approved prospects than they could do on their own.
Typically achieves lower purchase prices and total deal costs in exclusive negotiations.
- Better conversations with sellers.
- More time for in depth due diligence
- Buying at lower multiples, combined with the absence of sell-side fees and offsets of retainer fees, results in significantly lower transaction costs.
- Reduces expenses associated with failed competitive auction processes.
Demonstrates cost-efficiency compared to alternative expenditures.
- Lower than PE fund’s typical marketing, travel, and entertainment expenses, as well as time spent on ineffective leads.
- More economical than salaries and benefits of comparable and full-time staff positions.
- Initial retainer costs are effectively reduced to $0 at first closing due to credit offsets for paid retainer fees against the first closing fee.
- Exceptional return on investment, with potential returns as high as 13,180% on dollars invested in the search. Ask to see our library’s Financial Analysis!
- Support from Institutional Investors: Limited partners commend the Buyer’s proactive approach in engaging professional help, which speeds up the search process, finds the next acquisition, and accelerates fund deployment.
- Increased Transaction Speed and Probability of Success: The DealStar process boosts the likelihood and speed of completing transactions earlier in the life of a typical fund or during a platform’s hold period.
- Executive Focus: Executives tasked with identifying new platforms and overseeing growth value the assistance provided by the DealStar process. It allows them to concentrate on managing their company rather than exerting pressure on industry contacts for acquisition leads or pursuing unripe leads.
- Knowledge Enhancement for CEOs: While CEOs seeking acquisitions might be aware of some potential prospects within their industry, they often do not have comprehensive knowledge of all available prospects or their sale status. Moreover, CEOs generally prefer not to engage in prolonged outreach to cultivate raw leads from initial contacts to genuine sellers, as it is not considered the highest and best use of their time.
- Confidentiality and Third-Party Mediation: Many prospect companies are hesitant to discuss sensitive information with a competitor’s CEO due to the risk of negative repercussions should a deal not materialize. They require a neutral third party like Valufinder to present viable solutions to their concerns, ensuring a more comfortable and secure exchange.