Monday moving on and letting them get on with it. When you’re talking about getting in a room and trying to work towards a deal, if you know the other advisers, if you’ve worked with them before and you get on with them, you know that they play with a straight bat, that will massively reduce the stress of the transaction.


We encourage our team to give advice but then also give their view. I like clients who actually ask, ‘What would you do?’ If you have an adviser who knows the other team and who will also give you their view, then that will definitely help.


Stephen Robinson, PM+M


Stephen is corporate finance director at accountants PM+M focusing on M&A transactions, disposals, acquisitions, valuations and buy-outs.


From the M&A advisory side in particular, the first focus immediately after a purchase has been made is integrating the finance teams.


But what is often underappreciated in those first few days, weeks and months after a transaction has been completed, is the people.


Not necessarily the people that have been involved in the transaction, but the next group of people along from that who perhaps haven’t been aware of it up until this point.


They find out on a Monday morning that something’s changed. You can get a level of defensiveness, so it’s about patience, probably over- communication at that stage, because people have just experienced a period of zero communication about this event that’s just occurred. That is really the next stage and it takes place while the finance integration is still ongoing because that’s not an instant process either.


It is very much about communicating to people, ‘We’re all in it together,’ and being prepared for defensiveness and negativity, and going through it.


When it comes to the role of the adviser in a deal and where they fit in, the answer I believe is different depending on the transaction, the situation and the level of experience each of your clients actually has. The situation where someone has been through it many times is slightly different to somebody who is looking at this for the first time. The clients I come across may often be in a situation where an offer has come in and they aren’t prepared.


Steve Brennan, Bespoke


Steve is founder and chief executive of Chorley-based digital marketing agency Bespoke, which was acquired by Manchester- based Digital Media Stream this summer.


We are a small business and we started the journey towards a sale two years ago. We met so many potential acquirers, 15 in the end.


We actually went down the line with two companies, to within a couple of weeks from completion.


We just pulled out because of things that we felt were going to be problems later.


In the end we did find a buyer that felt completely aligned. I thought, ‘These are our people. It just feels like they could be in our team. This is going to be great.’


It has been fantastic, but I don’t think you realise the nuance of how a culture is until you align it with what looks like the very same culture, because it’s the tiny details of how people behave day to day.


A couple of things are key to reducing stress during the process.


One is that we told everybody this was the plan two years ahead of time, so all the staff knew everything.


We told them about the people that we were speaking to and introduced them.


So it was all open, there was no moment of, ‘What’s this going to be like?’ when we revealed it. We didn’t have that.


And I decided not to get into any discussions until we had multiple offers, creating that dynamic where there was no risk of a deal falling through.


The energy was, ‘Well you can step out if you like but these guys will take it if you don’t want it.’


We had an incentive plan for senior members of the team and we also had a roadmap.


And over the last two years, as we have been hiring, we have shared the plan.


It meant that the senior people arriving knew they had the opportunity to come into a company that was going to be acquired in the next few years and they would have a bigger opportunity within that.


When it comes to deals you’ve got to do what’s right or what you think is right because you know your people.


There are no guaranteed steps of how to do it. Each one is unique in its way.


Karen Morris, Community Foundation For Lancashire


Karen is development director and deputy chief executive of the Community Foundation for Lancashire.


I’m really interested in the human side of doing a deal and this whole issue of pressure


and how it builds up. There is a point where people ask, ‘What do I do now?’ Not everybody stays in their business.


There are a lot of people who are exiting. They have spent all their time building the business and then they go through this long process, asking if they have made the right decision and, ‘What’s going to happen to my baby once I’ve sold it and then what happens to me?’


Entrepreneurs will go on and create other things and do other things, but this is one of life’s points where a lot of people look to give something back and do something different.


There needs to be some discussion and advice around managing that properly as well.


Integration is about the people and the culture. Businesses are not just things, they are groups of people and those people have passions and commitments.


It’s that sense of identity, of belonging, what they stand for, what that business communicates externally to its clients and its customers, its staff, its community.


It is looking at how that’s used to bring people together to create that combination, that sense of belonging, that commitment, and it’s looking at what the new entity is.


What does it stand for? Is it an extension or a combination, or is it something completely different to what people have been used to before?


It’s very much about in-housing. When we’re looking at the culture and this society aspect of ESG, what does that mean to people?


How are they going to be looked after internally and then what’s this business about, what about its staff retention, its recruitment?


Not only is that new entity moving forward, it’s growing and developing as well, so that’s where we tend to come in and help businesses and work with them on that strategy.


LANCASHIREBUSINES SV IEW.CO.UK


25


DOING THE DEAL


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