Buying or selling a whole business, a division, a geographical region or a brand?

Buyers and sellers both need clear visibility of existing worth and value generation potential. Buyers need to know that any plans to enhance value generation will be viable post-acquisition. And management and stakeholder confidence is a pre-requisite for enhanced performance. Celerant assesses the potential for value creation and helps to ensure optimised asset performance through the following services.

• Operational due diligence and upside evaluation
• Synergy assessment
• Carve-out/separation and integration assessment
• Transition planning
• Operational reviews
• IT due diligence/capability assessment
• Management & organisation assessment

Now comes the really hard part. How will you deliver the deal proposition?

Unsure how to approach post deal implementation? Lacking the management experience or capacity to implement the critical action plans that will enable you to maximise the value of your business?

We work alongside management to deliver the deal proposition (e.g. acquisition, merger integration, buy & build, buy and rationalise/divest, etc) and help realise the synergy benefits of the transaction. Our operational and restructuring experience allows us to take a "hands-on" approach, supporting management in the front line. The post-deal service we offer include:

• Transition management
• Taking control – carve-out / separation / integration management
• Upside benefits/synergy realisation
• Post deal reviews

Are you looking for ways to increase operating margins and improve profitability?

Is your business struggling to achieve sustainable profitability? Are you finding it difficult to stop downward trends in profitability? In short, is trouble looming? Or, is the business just not performing either as you anticipated or as well as you know it could?

We carry out reviews of under-performing businesses. We also look at businesses generally considered to be performing well, to identify areas where performance can be improved. We aim to remain within the business post-review, supporting management and institutions to implement actions required to rapidly improve profitability. We have a strong track record of delivering profit improvement across a range of sectors. We focus upon all operational activities of the business to improve profitability, addressing:

• Operational turnaround
• Productivity improvement/cost reduction
• Procurement cost reduction
• Supply chain and process improvement
• Organisational design and restructuring

You want to sell a business, but you're not entirely ready?

We work with vendors to prepare businesses for sale. The services we provide focus upon:

• Improving profitability
• Vendor due diligence

Our team has the experience to examine all the operations of a business to ensure that performance either is, or can potentially be efficient and cost effective, generating maximum profitability to enhance valuation prior to exit.

Are your current operational capabilities a barrier to fulfilling business potential?

Operational structures will periodically need to be reviewed, upgraded, restructured, outsourced or even abandoned. Driving operational and total business performance involves a host of requirements, interdependencies and complexities. To bring clarity, we will articulate the core competences of a business and show how they can be leveraged into competitive advantage that drives value.

We have an operational team, all with hands-on industry experience, who can asses the operational strengths and weaknesses of an organisation quickly. We will identify the key issues facing business operations. And we will pinpoint the potential for unlocking significant value, which may otherwise be lost. This involves getting really close to the business capabilities, core competences and underlying processes across the whole value chain; covering activities that include:

• Research/New Product Development
• Procurement
• Conversion
• Logistics – warehousing, distribution
• Sales and Marketing
• Service Support
• Outsourcing
• Property rationalisation

Do you have the people and the structures in place to realise your vision and deliver your plans?

At the very time when they face instability, new structures or unfamiliar challenges, the success of an investment rests above all with the company’s management team. Our management assessment specialists, with their understanding of commercial and strategic objectives as well as management requirements, provide an independent perspective both on the capacity of key individuals and on the ability of the overall organisation to execute the business plan. This identifies weaknesses and constraints, thus reducing any surprise element and increasing the chances of business success and financial return post deal.

Our management assessment team provides analysis and recommendations to investors, including private equity houses, banks and company boards, adding a valuable management dimension to all transaction advice, through:

• Management due diligence
• Management review and performance improvement
• Organisation design and development
• Sourcing new management

Are your business strategies and processes really driving your IT requirements? Is your IT really suitable for your business?

IT infrastructure should underpin the operational requirements of the business. It should be fit for purpose, from both a technical and a management information perspective. Our team of IT specialists take the jargon out of IT, help determine and select the most appropriate systems, and leverage your current IT to secure optimal benefit for the business and your management team, at both strategic and operational level. We provide the following IT-related services:

• IS strategy review
• Specification of requirements
• Solutions procurement
• Implementation and project management
• IT due diligence/capability assessment
• Transition Services Agreement and transition planning
• Security review
• Forensic cases/expert witness/litigation
• IT recruitment advice