Buying a business is harder than building one
The statistics on acquisitions are sobering. Most acquired businesses underperform their pre-deal projections. Most acquirers overpay. Most deals struggle through the first 18 months of integration. The handful that succeed share a common pattern: clear investment thesis, disciplined diligence, structured negotiation, and integration planning that started before the deal closed.
We work with acquirers to do all four properly — independently, hourly, and aligned with your outcome rather than a closing.
What buy-side advisory covers
- Investment thesis development — what you're really trying to acquire (revenue, capability, geography, talent, defensive moat), what you'll pay a premium for, and what disqualifies a target before you spend time on it.
- Target sourcing — proprietary outreach to off-market targets aligned with your thesis, plus screening of broker-listed opportunities to filter the 90% that won't fit.
- Initial evaluation and IOI — quick first-pass financial and strategic assessment; indication of interest letter that opens the conversation without overcommitting.
- Quality of earnings and financial diligence — normalizing EBITDA, identifying revenue concentration risks, working capital analysis, and uncovering the "below-the-line" issues that change the deal economics.
- Operational and commercial diligence — customer interviews, contract review, key-person and culture assessment, IT and systems audit, and the qualitative factors that don't show up in the financials.
- Deal structuring and negotiation — purchase price, earnout structures, seller financing, equity rollover, reps and warranties, indemnification limits, and escrow design.
- Post-close integration planning — first-100-days plan, retention strategy for critical employees, systems and process unification, and synergy realization tracking.
Who works with us on buy-side
Private equity sponsors and family offices building Texas-focused or Gulf Coast investment theses. Strategic acquirers in growth mode who want experienced outside diligence support without building an internal corp-dev team. Searchers and ETA-backed funds working through their first or second platform investment. Operators acquiring competitors or complementary businesses and wanting an independent advisor to manage process discipline.
Engagement terms
$150/hour, drawn from a $1,500 booking retainer. Smaller engagements are scoped at up to roughly 25 hours; larger buy-side projects are quoted case by case. You stay in control of pace and budget — pause between phases, request scope adjustments, and replenish only when needed.