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HIRING ADVISERS
Hiring advisers is one of the most crucial factors in successful M&A. Here's a look at what to do.
INVESTMENT BANKERS
In an M&A transaction, you will deal with a mind-numbing array of accounting issues, SEC rules, taxes, valuation, and so on. Unless you have a tremendous capacity to learn such things, you risk many potential problems with a transaction. Also, it is difficult for most companies, which are focused on running business as usual, to conduct proper target searches and due diligence.
Because of all this, many companies rely on the services of M&A firms -- called investment banks.
In the investment banking world -- which is actually quite small -- there are two basic levels:
Bulge-bracket firms. These are the megafirms that provide one-stop services—everything from private client management to IPOs and M&A. They include the following:
- Morgan Stanley
- Goldman Sachs
- Merrill Lynch
- Citigroup Salomon Smith Barney
- CS First Boston
- Lehman Brothers
Boutique firms. These smaller, specialized firms include the following:
- Thomas Weisel Partners
- Alliant Partners
- WRHambrecht
- Jefferies
