- Nationwide – Integration planning for two building societies, covering actions required to integrate retail and contact centres and deliver related merger benefits, while insulating customers from impacts
- Netia/Tele2 –Assessed customer operations of alternative Telcos with radically different operating models, to develop single operating model to deliver acquisition benefits
- Private equity, acquisition of market researcher –Assessed separation plans from parent, and cost reduction plans based on technology and outsourcing
- TDF/Antenna Hungaria – Developed detailed plan to help TDF take control of AH, realign its strategy to an infrastructure focus and deliver cost savings. Led management team to agree integration objectives
- European Cable TV Altnet –Synergy planning across sales, marketing and networks in preparation for final binding offer for other competing Altnet delivering Pay TV, MVNO and fixed telecoms services.
- Innovation – Acquisition planning for a publicly quoted client to enable it to acquire, under Class 1 procedures, a loss making business and plan delivery of synergies required to turn it around
- Key player in the music industry – Reviewed previous restructuring actions and a plan to reduce costs, analysing cost base, identifying major risks to base case plan and some upsides
- Mach–Synergy planning to support financing of acquisition and integration of a mobile billing intermediary business
- PE House/Towers Business – Assessed synergy to raise £250m of finance, covering integration of field operations, procurement, and investment programmes
- Towers Business –Post acquisition merger planning under onerous ‘Hold Separate’ conditions, helping to control a high level of business risk, putting in place a ‘ready to go’ integration programme
- PE House, owner of media service business –Advice and challenge on ‘low-balled’ synergies. Helped PE House obtain commitment from top management to higher and more reasonable synergy projections
- Datatec – Operational Due Diligence. Identified key issues on acquisition of distressed US network integrator for group building worldwide service delivery footprint
- Datatec – Analysed similarities and differences in two acquisitions with a high degree of overlap, but some unique elements. Proposed new structures and a carve out/integration roadmap
- Macquarie – Assessed vendor preparations for the separation of Airwave from O2, assessing issues, e.g. impact on contracts, and standalone costs, and developed separation roadmap for acquiring PE house
- Financial Trading Business – Advice on people, transaction and valuation issues created in carving out and moving a business within a complex corporate structure, including General Partnership, LLP and PLC entities
- Macquarie – Diligence for Arqiva refinance – Assessed execution risk on a massive contract with large failure penalties and assumptions underlying a £1b Capexplan
- Synergy planning
- Advice and challenge on quantum and timing
- Bidding process
European Cable TV Altnet
Assessing synergies and developing bottom up plans
A European country had a number of Altnets, some leveraging Cable TV infrastructure, others using mixture of SDH national networks and local loops in key towns. Our client was offered the opportunity to bid for a highly complementary asset, and take a lead in an overdue consolidation on the supply of telecoms service provision. Given the need for confidentially, early planning for a first offer had been done by a small group key managers, but lacked any grounding in a wider operational expertise and ‘buy in’. In preparation for a final and binding offer, our client wanted to engage with a wider group of managers, harness data made available in management presentations and a data room, while using an independent challenge to estimates of quantum to ensure they were neither overly conservative nor optimistic. Essentially the requirement was for robust projections with a wider ‘buy in’ from operational management.
A team of three experts was needed to help plan and challenge synergies in very compressed timescales. David led the team, holding a workshop to mobilise a group of key client managers. The client team was supported by David’s team, assisting with management’s analysis of rationale, benefit and cost quantum, key assumptions, dependencies and risks. We drove completion of initiative plans templates to ensure a uniform level of planning. Once first drafts were completed, a second workshop ensured synergies plans had no overlaps or double counting. Particular emphasis was made on challenging assumptions and dependencies, to improve these aspects of the plans. The workshop left each initiative owner with a set of improvement actions which were completed and validated by David and his team.
The resultant initiatives were consolidated into an overlay business plan to the standalone models of the client’s and target business. This enabled the value of the acquisition to be assessed and a bid price submitted, backed by a robust set of synergy plans, prepared and owned by management, and validated by independent expertise.